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PRINCETON    .    NEW  JERSEY 

v//  vis.* 
PRESENTED  BY 

William   L.    Tuok'3r 

BV   663    .W38    1900 
Maclaren,    Ian,    1850-1907. 
Church  folks 

Church   Folks 


Church  Folks'^ 


LS-. 


BEING  PRACTICAL  STUDIES 
IN  CONGREGATIONAL  LIFE 


By 

"Ian  Ma^^^ren" 

(Dr.  John  Watson) 

AUTHOR  OF   "beside  THE  BONNIE  BRIER  BUSH," 
THE  MIND  OF  THE  MASTER,"  "THE  CURE  OF  SOULS,"  ETC. 


NEW  YORK 
DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  CO. 

1900 


Copyright,  1899,  ^Qooi 
by  the  Curtis  Publishing  Company 

Copyright,  1900, 
by  Doubleday,  Page  &  Company 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE. 

I.     How  to  Make  the  Most  of  a  Sermon,  1 
II.     Plow  to  Make    the  Most  of  Your 

Ministir, 19 

III.     The     Candj'-Pull     Sj^stem    in    the 

Church 37 

rv.     The  Mutineer  in  the  Church,    ...  54 
V.     Should  the  Old  Clergyman  Be  Shot?  71 
VI.     The  Minister  and  the  Organ,    ...  88 
VII.     The  Pew  and  the  Man  iu  it,      ...  109 
VIII.     The  Genteel  Tramps  in  Our  Church- 
es,       126 

IX.     Is  the  Minister  an  Idler?      ....  145 

X.     The  Minister  and  His  Vacation,    .     .  165 

XI.     The  Revival  of  a  Minister,  ....  186 


Church  Folks. 
I. 

How  TO  Make  the  Most  of  a  Ser- 

MOI^. 

Uis^To  the  success  of  a  sermon  two 
people  contribiTtCj  and  without  their 
joint  efforts  the  sermon  must  be  a  fail- 
ure. One  is  the  preacher  and  the  other 
is  the  hearer,  and  if  some  art  goes  to  the 
comj)osition  of  the  sermon,  almost  as 
much  goes  to  its  reception. 

In  the  art  of  the  hearer  the  first 
canon  is  practice,  for  it  is  a  fact  that 
the  regular  attendant  not  only  hears 
more  but  also  hears  better  than  the  per- 
son who  drops  into  church  once  in  two 


2  Church    Folks 

months.  Xo  doubt  if  tlie  preacher  has 
lungs  of  brass,  and  the  hearer  is  not 
stone  deaf,  a  casual  can  catch  every 
word  on  tlie  rare  occasion  when  he  at- 
tends, although  for  the  past  six  weeks 
he  has  worshipped  at  home  or  made  the 
round  of  the  neighboring  churches. 
There  is  some  difference,  however,  be- 
tween a  steam  whistle  which  commands 
its  audience  within  a  given  area  with- 
out distinction,  and  a  musical  instru- 
ment to  Vvdiich  ears  must  be  attuned  for 
its  appreciation. 

The  Chief  Co]S"ditio^  of  Successful 
Hearing. 

The  voice  of  a  competent  speaker  is 
not  so  much  sound  merely,  but  is  so 
much  music,  with  subtle  intonations 
and  delicate  modulations;  his  pronun- 
ciation of  a  word  is  a  commentary  upon 
it ;  his  look  as  he  speaks  is  a  translation 
of  it ;   his  severity  is  softened  by  the 


Church    Folks  3 

pathos  of  his  tone ;  his  praise  is  doubled 
by  its  ring  of  satisfaction.  A  stranger's 
ear  is  not  trained  to  such  niceties ;  it  is 
the  habituated  ear  which  reaps  the  full 
sense. 

Besides,  every  speaker  worth  hearing 
creates  his  own  atmosphere,  and  one 
cannot  hear  with  comfort  until  he  is 
acclimatized.  The  speaker  has  his  o^vii 
standpoint,  and  one  must  be  there  to 
think  with  him;  he  passes  every  word 
through  his  own  mint,  and  one  must  be 
familiar  with  the  stamping.  Casuals 
are  puzzled  by  the  man,  but  his  famil- 
iar friends  are  at  home  with  him.  "He 
said  this  or  that,''  the  casual  urges. 
"Oh,  yes,''  answers  the  expert,  "but 
with  him  that  means  something  more." 
Perhaps  the  chief  condition  of  success- 
ful hearing  is  to  know  the  speaker,  his 
working  axioms,  his  special  devotion, 
his  unconscious  prejudices,  his  charac- 
teristic message,  and  this  knowledge  can 
only  be  got  by  continual  hearing. 


4  Church  Folks 

Whex  a  Minister  Reveaes  Himself. 

It  is  not  in  private  that  a  minister 
really  reveals  himself;  it  is  in  the  pul- 
pit. When  you  met  him  on  Saturday 
upon  the  street  he  spoke  of  the  weather 
or  about  a  book,  hiding  himself,  as  every 
real  man  does,  in  ordinary  intercourse ; 
on  Sunday,  without  knowing,  he  drops 
his  mask  till  you  can  read  his  character 
and  have  seen  his  soul.  Of  course, 
some  men  are  as  veiled  in  preaching  as 
in  conversation,  but  in  that  case  their 
hearers  have  lost  nothing;  there  is  no 
individuality  to  reveal,  only  a  lay  figure 
beneath  the  conventional  garments  of 
the  day.  It  takes  one  month  of  con- 
stant wear  to  break  in  a  pair  of  heavy 
walking  boots,  and  at  least  six  months 
to  fit  into  a  new  study  chair;  a  year  of 
constant  attendance  is  required  to  j)lace 
one  on  easy  terms  with  a  preacher,  and 
then  the  advantage  must  not  be  thrown 
away. 


Church    Folks  5 

Scottish  Congkegations  Which  Ap- 
pear Asleep. 

The  second  canon  is  attention,  which 
comes  to  this,  that  a  hearer  shall  make 
his  body  serve  his  soul  in  church.  Peo- 
ple may  be  listening  when  they  sit  mo- 
tionless with  their  eyes  shut,  and  many 
explain  that  they  have  simply  with- 
drawn themselves  from  a  disturbing  en- 
vironment, but  in  that  case  they  ought 
to  give  some  sign  of  life  at  intervals,  if 
only  to  reassure  the  preacher  and  to 
save  their  neighbors  from  the  sin  of 
uncharitable  judgment.  There  are  con- 
gregations in  Scotland  where  one-third 
of  the  audience  appears  to  be  asleep,  but 
the  preacher  is  afterward  assured  that 
these  very  hearers  could  give  the  best 
account  of  his  sermon  and  are  the  keen- 
est critics  of  his  orthodoxy.  They  do 
not,  however,  form  an  exhilarating  spec- 
tacle for  the  preacher,  and  his  tempta- 
tion  will   often   be   to    say   something 


6  Church    Folks 

heterodox  in  order  to  compel  them  to 
give  some  sign  of  interest. 

If  any  one,  on  the  other  hand,  is  af- 
flicted by  the  evil  spirit  of  restlessness 
V7hich  is  ever  impelling  him  to  fidget 
and  sometimes  drives  him  beneath  the 
book-board,  then  this  man  ought  either 
to  master  his  tormentor  by  practice  at 
home,  or  he  should  be  placed  in  some 
special  seat  where  he  may  hear  but  not 
be  seen. 


Audiences   of   Studied  ISTegligence. 

'Nor  does  it,  in  any  way,  assist  sym- 
pathetic hearing  for  a  man  to  fold  his 
arms  and  throw  himself  into  his  seat  as 
one  who  knows  what  is  before  him  and 
will  endure  to  the  end  without  flinch- 
ing. A  preacher  may  at  any  time  refer 
to  the  noble  army  of  martyrs,  but  he 
does  not  wish  to  address  a  body  of  mar- 
tyrs in  his  own  church.  N^othing  will 
more  certainly  discourage  a  preacher, 


Church    Folks  7 

till  the  words  break  on  his  lips  and  he 
can  hardly  maintain  grammar,  than  an 
audience  in  every  attitude  of  studied 
negligence,  and  nothing  will  more  cer- 
tainly inspire  him  than  one  unbroken 
expanse  of  intelligent  faces. 

When    a    Sermon    Can    be    Heakd 
Aeigiit. 

l^ext  comes  concentration,  and  here 
the  trained  hearer  has  an  enormous 
advantage.  If  it  be  difficult  for  some 
people  to  listen,  it  is  ten  times  harder 
for  other  people  to  follow,  for  it  is  evi- 
dent a  person  may  listen  and  not  follow. 
Very  few  are  accustom^ed  to  think  about 
the  same  thing,  or,  indeed,  to  think 
about  anything,  for  thirty  minutes; 
after  a  brief  space  their  interest  flags 
and  they  fall  behind ;  they  have  long 
ago  lost  the  thread  of  the  preacher's  ar- 
gument and  have  almost  forgotten  his 
subject.     The  sermon  which  suits  such 


8  Church    Folks 

a  desultory  mind  is  one  of  twenty  para- 
graphs^ each  paragraph  an  anecdote  or 
an  illustration  or  a  startling  idea,  so 
that  wherever  the  hearer  joins  in  he  can 
be  instantly  at  home.  Sensible  people 
ought,  however,  to  remember  that  a 
series  of  amusing  lantern-slides  and  a 
work  of  severe  art  are  not  the  same,  and 
if  any  one  is  to  expound  the  gospel  of 
Christ  worthily  he  must  reason  as  he 
goes  and  ask  his  hearers  to  think.  The 
chain  may  be  of  gold,  but  there  ought  to 
be  links  securely  fastened  together,  and 
a  hearer  should  try  them  as  they  pass 
through  his  hands.  If  one  does  not 
brace  himself  for  the  effort  of  hearing 
a  sermon  he  Avill  almost  certainly  finish 
up  by  complaining  either  that  the 
preacher  was  dull  or  that  the  discourse 
was  disconnected.  'No  sermon  is  worth 
hearing  into  which  the  preacher  has  not 
put  his  whole  strength,  and  no  sermon 
can  be  heard  aright  unless  the  hearer 
gives  his  whole  strength  also. 


Church    Folks  9 

What   a  Preacher  is  Entitled  to. 

My  fourth  canon  of  successful  listen- 
ing is  candor,  and  a  preacher  is  entitled 
to  ask  this  quality  of  his  hearer.  If  a 
juryman  enters  the  box  with  his  mind 
made  up  regarding  the  case,  then  it  is 
vain  for  any  counsel  to  speak,  and  there 
is  no  hoj)e  of  securing  a  just  verdict. 
If  a  person  enters  church  with  hope- 
less prejudices  in  the  matter  of  truth, 
then  it  does  not  matter  how  able  or  how 
eloquent  the  j^reacher  may  be,  he  can- 
not get  access  to  that  hearer's  mind. 
The  honest  hearer  is  one  who  is  willing 
to  consider  every  argument  and  to  re- 
vise every  conclusion,  except,  of  course, 
those  half  dozen  outstanding  verities 
which  no  preacher  of  intellectual  sanity 
would  ever  attack  and  which  every  re- 
ligious person  accepts  as  final.  There 
are,  however,  many  sides  of  truth 
which  a  hearer  may  never  have  seen 
and  many  applications  of  truth  which 


lo  Church    Folks 

may  never  have  occurred  to  him. 
He  ought  to  be  willing  to  follow  the 
preacher  as  a  guide  and  at  least  to  judge 
the  prosjDect  for  himself:  he  ought  to 
be  willing  to  consider  how  far  the 
preacher's  word  affects  his  ovm  con- 
duct. 

IS'othing  stimulates  a  preacher  and 
gives  him  greater  confidence  in  ex- 
pounding truth  than  the  assurance  that 
every  word  which  he  speaks  from  an 
honest  mind  will  be  considered  by 
honest  hearers.  He  feels  that  if  they 
agree  with  him,  it  wdll  be  because  they 
have  been  convinced;  if  they  disagree 
with  him,  it  will  be  because  in  their 
judgment  he  has  failed  to  make  good 
his  plea. 

The  Atmosphere  Killin-q  to  a 
Church. 

And  the  last  canon  is  charity,  Avhicli 
blesses   twice — the   man   who   preaches 


Church    Folks  1 1 

and  the  people  who  hear.  JSTo  atmos- 
phere is  so  injurious  to  the  hearer,  and 
none  so  trying  to  the  preacher,  as  petty 
criticisms  and  malicious  interpretation. 
People  ought  to  hear  in  a  large  and 
generous  spirit,  remembering  that  the 
preacher  is  a  man  of  like  frailties  with 
themselves,  and  remembering  that  no 
man  ought  to  be  judged  except  on  the 
length  and  breadth  of  his  teaching.  It 
is  possible  that  one  day  he  may  be  dull 
— it  is  a  matter  of  the  weather ;  it  is 
possible  another  day  that  he  may  not 
be  sweet-tempered — it  is  a  matter  of 
digestion;  the  hearers  ought  to  make 
great  allowances  for  one  who  has  to 
work  with  the  double  instrument  of  a 
fickle  mind  and  an  imperfect  body. 
Hearers  should  lay  it  dowm  as  a  rule 
that  no  man  ever  can  be  equal  except 
he  travel  on  the  plane  of  dreary  com- 
monplace. 


1 2  Church    Folks 

The  Pkeachee  Who  is  Always  the 
Same. 

It  is  said  that  once  a  deputation  from 
a  vacant  congregation  went  to  hear  a 
middle-aged  doctor  of  divinity,  a  man 
of  placid  disposition  and  uninspired 
mind.  After  hearing  him  preach  a  ser- 
mon which  he  had  prepared  on  the 
Monday  forenoon  preceding,  and  the 
like  of  which  he  could  have  prepared 
every  forenoon  following,  they  asked 
one  of  his  congregation  whether  that 
was  a  fair  specimen  of  the  doctor^s 
preaching.  ''Ye  may,"  he  said,  ''depend 
on  that;  hear  him  once  ye  hear  him 
ever;  he's  aye  the  same;  there  are  no 
ups  and  downs  with  the  doctor.''  Cer- 
tainly he  never  descended  below  the 
even  road  of  bare  common  sense,  and 
certainly  he  never  ascended  to  the 
heights  of  inspiration.  Many  preachers 
find  that  every  fourth  or  fifth  Sunday, 
as  the  case  may  be,  they  fail,  beating 


Church    Folks  1 3 

the  ground  with  their  wings,  and  not 
being  able  to  rise.  Their  congregations 
will  receive  ample  compensation  on  the 
Sunday  following,  and  they  will  enjoy 
the  top  of  the  mountain,  w^th  its  far 
view  and  breezy  atmosphere,  all  the 
more  on  account  of  the  valley  wherein 
they  walked  and  were  shut  in. 

The  Ckuelest  Act  of  the  Pew. 

One  of  the  crudest  acts  of  injustice 
on  the  part  of  the  pew  is  to  suspect  the 
preacher  of  personality  and  to  read 
unthought-of  meanings  into  his  words. 
Should  a  preacher  describe  with  much 
minuteness  of  detail  and  a  certain 
keenness  of  feeling  any  particular  sin, 
his  hearers  ought  to  be  certain  that  lie 
is  describing  his  o\^ti  sin,  for,  indeed, 
no  man  knows  any  sin  as  he  knows  his 
own. 

It  is  best  for  the  hearer  to  believe 
that  the  preacher  is  moved  simply  in 
everything  he  says  by  loyalty  to  truth 


14  Church    Folks 

and  by  the  love  of  his  fellow-men,  and 
that  no  one  regrets  so  bitterly  as  he 
does  any  shortcoming  in  exposition  or 
any  defect  in  the  spirit  of  his  teaching. 
His  desire  is  to  convince  and  to  com- 
fort; his  one  reward  the  spiritual  help 
which  he  affords  to  the  souls  of  his 
fellow-men.  If  by  his  w^ords  any  brother 
man  is  strengthened  to  do  his  work  with 
more  faithfulness  during  the  week,  or 
is  succored  amid  the  trials  of  life,  then 
he  has  not  failed  in  his  calling  and  does 
not  regret  his  sacrifices.  His  endeavor 
is  the  highest  known  in  human  life  and 
his  labor  is  the  hardest.  Unto  him 
therefore  should  be  extended  the  utmost 
sympathy,  and  for  him  there  should  be 
offered  the  most  constant  and  earnest 
prayer. 

LisTENiisTG  Without  Peactice  ^o 

Use. 

1^0  hearer  has  given  a  preacher  a  fair 
chance  if  he  forgets  what  has  been  said 


Church    Folks  1 5 

at  the  church  door,  or  if  he  treats  a 
sermon  as  an  essay  to  be  discussed.  The 
church  is  not  a  place  of  recreation  nor 
a  debating  society:  it  is  a  school,  where 
the  chief  lesson  of  knowledge  is  taught 
— how  to  live.  The  instructions  are 
given  from  the  pulpit;  the  demonstra- 
tion must  be  made  at  home.  Above  all 
religions,  Christianity  is  experimental 
and  practical — a  set  not  of  rules,  but 
of  principles  which  must  be  wrought 
out  in  the  details  of  each  man's  life. 
That  preacher  has  understood  his  duty 
and  done  it  who  moves  a  man  to  action, 
and  that  hearer  has  made  the  utmost 
of  a  sermon  who  has  proved  it  in  prac- 
tice. It  is  not  necessary  that  the 
preacher  be  didactic,  saying  as  to  chil- 
dren, '^  You  must  do  this  or  that," 
which  is  insufferable  and  ineffectual. 
The  best  preachers  are  suggestive,  mak- 
ing men  ashamed  of  low  living  by  the 
exposure  of  sin,  and  moving  men  to 
nobility   by   exhibiting   the   beauty   of 


1 6  Church    Folks 

virtue.  The  honest  hearer  does  not  do 
good  afterward  because  he  was  told,  but 
because  he  must.  He  has  opened  his 
heart  to  the  message  of  truth  as  soft 
spring  soil  for  the  seed,  and  in  this 
hospitable  home  the  seed  springs  up. 

The  Chief  End  of  Every  Sermon. 

Above  all  things,  the  Christian 
preacher  makes  two  demands,  and  both 
can  be  justified  only  by  the  obedience 
of  the  hearer.  He  invites  his  audience 
to  become  disciples  and  servants  of 
Jesus;  he  magnifies  the  Master's  grace 
and  power;  he  assures  his  fellow-men 
that  to  trust  in  Jesus  and  to  follow  Him 
is  to  live.  If  the  hearer  argues  and 
debates  about  Jesus,  he  can  never  arrive 
at  the  facts,  and  he  has  not  dealt  fairly 
with  the  preacher.  Let  him  put  the 
matter  to  the  test  and  make  the  adven- 
ture with  Jesus  as  did  the  first  Chris- 
tians. If  he  does,  then  he  will  be  able 
to  judge  the  preacher ;  if  not,  he  ought 


Church    Folks  1 7 

to  be  silent.  'Never  has  there  been  more 
futile  criticism  than  that  of  hearers  who 
will  not  believe:  such  people  wander 
roimd  the  outside  of  the  cathedral  and 
discuss  the  painted  glass,  which  can 
only  be  understood  from  the  inside. 
Another  appeal  of  the  Christian 
preacher  is  for  sacrifice,  and  it  is  his 
duty  to  magnify  the  glory  of  unselfish 
living.  He  asks  people  to  do  what  is 
hard  and  unattractive,  and  promises 
them  a  gain  which  is  spiritual  and 
unseen.  It  lies  upon  the  hearer  to 
verify  this  commandment  for  himself, 
and  to  find  out  whether  serving  others, 
and  not  one's  self,  does  make  one  hap- 
pier and  stronger. 

The  chief  end  of  preaching  is,  after 
all,  inspiration,  and  the  man  who  has 
been  set  on  fire  is  the  vindication  of  the 
pulpit.  The  chief  disaster  of  preaching 
is  detachment  and  indifference.  Xever 
was  any  sermon  so  poor  and  thin  but  it 
contained  more  than  its  hearers  could 


1 8  Church    Folks 

practise.  'No  sermon  has  failed  which 
has  sent  one  man  away  richer  by  a 
single  thought,  or  stirred  to  a  single 
brave  deed. 


II. 


How  TO  Make   the   Most   of  Your 

MlI^ISTER. 

BetweejS"  a  minister  and  his  congre 
gation  there  is  an  action  and  a  reaction, 
so  that  the  minister  makes  the  congrega- 
tion, and  the  congregation  makes  the 
minister.  When  one  speaks  of  a  minis- 
ter's service  to  his  people,  one  is  not 
thinking  of  peAV  rents  and  offertories 
and  statistics  and  crowds,  nor  of  schools 
and  guilds  and  classes  and  lectures. 
The  master  achievement  of  the  minister 
is  to  form  character  and  to  make  men. 
The  chief  question,  therefore,  to  con- 
sider about  a  minister's  work  is :  What 
kind  of  men  has  he  made  ? 


20  Church    Folks 

And  one,  at  least,  of  the  most  decisive 
questions  by  which  the  members  of  a 
congregation  can  be  judged  is:  What 
have  they  made  of  their  minister  ?  By 
that  one  does  not  mean  what  salary  they 
may  give  him  nor  how  agreeable  they 
may  be  to  him,  but  how  far  he  has  be- 
come a  man  and  risen  to  his  height  in 
the  atmosphere  of  his  congregation. 
Some  congregations  have  ruined  minis- 
ters by  harassing  them  till  they  lost 
heart  and  self-control,  and  became  pee- 
vish and  ill-tempered.  Some  congrega- 
tions, again,  have  ruined  ministers  by 
so  humoring  and  petting  them  that  they 
could  endure  no  contradiction,  and  be- 
came childish.  That  congregation  has 
done  its  duty  most  effectively  which  has 
created  an  atmosphere  so  genial,  and 
yet  so  bracing,  that  every  good  in  its 
minister  has  been  fostered  and  every- 
thing petty  killed. 


Church    Folks  2 1 

What  the  Congregation  Must  Do. 

A  young  minister  is  a  charge  com- 
mitted to  a  congregation,  and  its  first 
dnty  is  patience,  especially  with  his 
preaching.  One  extremely  young,  and, 
what  is  not  the  same  thing,  very  imma- 
ture, minister  began  life  as  assistant  in 
a  city  church  famous  for  its  activity  and 
earnestness.  His  work  was  to  visit  sick 
people  and  to  attend  to  details,  and, 
wisely,  he  was  seldom  asked  to  preach. 
When  he  did  preach  his  sermon  was 
a  very  boyish  performance  indeed — 
shallow,  rhetorical,  unpractical — and 
he  had  sense  enough  to  be  ashamed.  By 
and  by  he  was  appointed,  for  accidental 
and  personal  reasons,  to  a  church  of  his 
own  in  a  remote  country  district.  Be- 
fore he  left  the  big  city  church,  one  of 
the  elders  called  to  bid  him  farewell. 
He  said  he  felt  that  it  was  only  right 
to  point  out  where  the  assistant  had 
succeeded  and  where  he  had  failed. 


2  2  Church    Folks 

"  You  have  been  very  attentive  to  the 
invalids  and — er — the  children,  and  I 
may  say  without  flattery  that  you  have 
been  well  liked,  but  you  know  that  God 
has  not  given  you  the  power  of  public 
speech.  I  am  afraid  you  will  never 
be  able  to  preach.  Still,  you  may  have 
much  usefulness  and  blessing  as  a  pas- 
tor.'' 

It  was  not  a  cheering  prospect  to 
wait  on  old  ladies  and  attend  Sunday- 
school  treats,  but  the  lad  thanked  the 
candid  elder  with  a  sinking  heart,  and 
went  to  his  new  work. 

What   Ois^e  Man  Did  foe  His 
Minister. 

His  first  experiences  in  the  ncAV 
parish  seemed  to  confirm  the  pessimistic 
prophecy.  One  day  he  forgot  every- 
thing in  the  middle  of  his  sermon; 
another  day,  in  expounding  an  epistle 
of  Saint  Paul,  he  had  got  his  thoughts 


Church    Folks  23 

into  such  a  tangled  skein  that  he  had 
to  begin  again  and  repeat  half  his  ex- 
position. On  that  occasion  the  young 
minister  was  so  utterly  disheartened 
that  he  formed  a  hasty  resolution  in  the 
pulpit  to  retire,  and  went  into  the 
vestry  in  the  lowest  spirits.  There  an 
old  Highland  elder  was  awaiting  him 
to  take  him  by  the  hand  and  to  thank 
him  for  ^'  an  eloquent  discourse.'' 

"  It  is  wonderful/'  he  said  in  his 
soft,  kindly  accent,  ^'  that  you  are 
preaching  so  well,  and  you  so  young, 
and  I  am  wanting  to  say  that  if  you 
ever  forget  a  head  of  your  discourse, 
3^ou  are  not  to  be  putting  yourself  about. 
You  will  just  give  out  a  Psalm  and  be 
taking  a  rest,  and  maybe  it  will  be 
coming  back  to  you.  We  all  have  plenty 
of  time,  and  we  all  will  be  liking  you 
very  much.  The  people  are  saying 
what  a  good  preacher  you  are  going  to 
be  soon,  and  they  are  already  very 
proud  of  you." 


24  Church    Folks 

Next  Sunday  the  minister  entered 
the  pulpit  with  a  confident  heart,  and 
was  sustained  by  the  buoyant  atmos- 
phere of  friendliness;  and  as  a  conse- 
quence he  did  not  hesitate  nor  forget, 
nor  has  he  required  since  that  day  to 
begin  again.  Little  wonder  that  his 
heart  goes  back  from  a  city  to  that 
Highland  parish  with  affection  and 
gratitude ;  had  it  not  been  for  the  char- 
ity of  his  first  people  he  would  not  now 
be  in  the  ministry. 

A    CONGKEGATIOJT   MuST    StAND   BY   ITS 
MiNISTEK. 

The  members  of  a  congregation  are 
bound  to  stand  by  their  minister  in  the 
outer  world.  He  is  their  ovm,  and  they 
ought  to  be  jealous  of  his  good  name. 
If  he  says  or  does  what  is  less  than 
right,  let  them  tell  him  face  to  face  in 
all  tenderness  and  love;  but  if  strang- 
ers criticise  him,  let  his  people  defend 


Church    Folks  25 

and  praise.  If  a  man's  o^\ai  household 
is  loyal,  then  he  is  not  cast  down  by  the 
hostility  of  the  man  on  the  street. 
When  it  turns  against  him  he  loses 
heart.  ISTothing  will  teach  a  proper  man 
to  judge  himself  more  severely  or  to 
realize  his  faults  more  distinctly  than 
the  discovery  that  his  critics  in  private 
are  his  advocates  in  public. 

It  happened  once  that  a  leading 
member  of  a  congregation  considered 
it  his  duty  to  remonstrate  with  his 
minister,  to  whom  he  was  deeply  at- 
tached, because  the  minister's  preach- 
ing had  gvovna.  hard  and  unspiritual. 
They  were  personal  friends,  and  the 
conversation  w^as  conducted  with  per- 
fect taste  and  temper ;  but  the  minister 
did  feel  a  little  sore  afterwards,  which 
was  rather  foolish,  and  he  worried  him- 
self wdth  the  idea  that  his  friends  and 
his  congregation  were  turning  against 
him.  A  few  days  afterward  a  brother 
minister  called  upon  him,  and  as  they 


26  Church    Folks 

talked  of  one  thing  and  another  his 
visitor  congratulated  him  on  the  attach- 
ment of  his  people.  ^^  Why,  last  night 
at  a  dinner-table  old  Doctor  Sardine 
was  carping  at  your  preaching — calling 
you  a  rationalist,  and  so  forth — when 
Mr.  Cochrane  spoke  out  at  once  and 
told  the  old  gentleman  that  he  did  not 
know  what  he  was  talking  about.  ^  I  go 
to  his  church/  said  your  man,  ^  and  I 
know  that  I  can  never  repay  my  minis- 
ter all  that  he  has  done  for  me  and 
mine.'  It  was  straight  talk,  and  pro- 
duced an  immense  impression,  and  one 
minister  envied  you  such  a  friend." 

IN^OTHiNG  Helps  a  Min^ister  Like 

COI^FIDENCE. 

While  his  friend  had  told  him  his 
faults  boldly,  man  to  man,  and  he  had 
taken  private  offence,  like  a  foolish 
child,  that  friend  had  been  guarding 
his   reputation  with   generous   enthusi- 


Church    Folks  27 

asm,  and  at  the  thought  thereof  he  was 
moved  to  repentance.  The  judgment 
of  his  friend  received  a  new  w^eight, 
being  sanctioned  by  such  pledges  of 
sincerity  and  magnanimity.  So  it  came 
to  pass  in  the  end  that  the  minister 
reconsidered  his  position  and  realized 
that  he  had  fallen  into  extremes.  Noth- 
ing has  a  more  wholesome  effect  on  a 
high-spirited  man  than  the  sense  that 
a  number  of  people  trust  him  and  guard 
him,  and  are  ready  to  stand  or  fall  with 
him.  This  confidence  inspires  him 
with  humility,  tones  down  his  pride, 
teaches  him  caution,  and  lays  on  him 
the  responsibility  of  carrying  himself 
well  in  the  conflict  of  life. 

A  wise  congregation  will  also  respond 
to  the  highest  which  the  minister  gives, 
and  will  discriminate  between  the  sec- 
ond-rate and  first-rate  product  of  his 
brain.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  a  cheap 
sermon,  which  may  be  very  popular 
and  shovvy,  vrith  a  shallow  cleverness. 


28  Church    Folks 

Bright  men  are  often  tempted  to  preach 
such  sermons  because  they  are  easily 
thrown  off,  and  do  not  strain  the  sonl. 
And  a  congregation  is  apt  to  welcome 
such  sermons  because  they  demand  little 
attention. 

C0N"GEEGATI0N'S    MuST    LiSTEInT    WITH 

THEiK  Souls. 

There  is  such  a  thing  as  a  dear  ser- 
mon, which  has  cost  a  man  agony  of 
brain  and  heart — a  sermon  charged 
with  thought  and  passion.  Such  ser- 
mons are  not  lightly  prepared  nor  can 
they  be  lightly  heard.  As  the  preacher 
has  put  his  soul  into  his  work,  so  the 
people  must  put  their  souls  into  the 
hearing.  Of  course,  a  strong  man  will 
not  cease  to  put  forth  his  hardest, 
choicest  work,  although  no  one  approves, 
and  he  will  not  fall  beneath  his  best  in 
any  circumstances;  but  the  desire  for 
cheap    and   popular   preaching   puts    a 


Church    Folks  29 

heavy  strain  on  the  resolution  of  an 
ordinary  minister  until  he  is  sometimes 
tempted  to  please  the  foolish  people  in 
his  congregation,  and  to  lighten  his  own 
burden  by  giving  them  less  than  his 
best.  And  it  is  the  saddest  of  all  ironies 
in  church  life  when  a  man  succeeds,  as 
far  as  outside  appearances  go,  who  has 
buried  his  talents,  and  a  congregation 
is  happy  and  apparently  satisfied  which 
has  wasted  its  minister. 

If  a  minister  be  inspired  by  high 
ideals  and  has  an  iron  will,  he  will 
fulfil  himself  in  spite  of  the  most  de- 
bilitating circumstances,  and  although 
his  people  clamor  for  cheap  cleverness, 
he  will  insist  on  feeding  them  with  the 
finest  of  the  wheat.  Many  worthy  men, 
however,  are  neither  particularly  strong 
nor  spiritual,  and  if  their  people  have 
no  appetite  for  strong  meat,  they  will 
satisfy  them  with  the  poorest  of  all 
claptrap — the  claptrap  of  religion.  It 
may  be  evangelistic  verbiage  or  social 


30  Church    Folks 

rant  or  rationalistic  cant,  but  it  is  the 
by-product  of  the  man's  mind,  and 
worse  than  worthless  to  the  members 
of  his  church. 


The   Minister   Must   Lead   His 
People. 

The  minister  should  be  given  to 
understand  that  his  congregation  ex- 
pects to  share  in  the  ripest  knowledge 
he  possesses,  and  will  appreciate  his 
most  careful  thinking.  When  he  rises 
to  his  height  on  any  occasion  and 
preaches  a  great  sermon  it  does  not 
matter  whether  every  person  has  under- 
stood every  word  or  some  of  them  only 
about  one-half.  He  ought  to  be  told 
that  all  the  members  of  his  church  are 
proud  of  him  and  thank  God  for  him, 
and  that  even  if  he  were  beyond  them, 
this  was  not  because  of  obscurity,  but 
because  of  elevation,  and  that  they  are 
pleased  to  have  a  minister  who  lives  at 


Church    Folks  3 1 

such  a  level.  He  must  not  come  down 
to  tliem,  but  they  must  strive  to  rise  to 
him.  It  is  a  miserable  business  for 
a  preacher  to  repeat  the  commonplaces 
of  his  people  in  a  showy  form  so  that 
the  man  in  the  street  goes  home  con- 
gratulating himself  because  he  has 
heard  his  paltry  ideas  tricked  out  in 
a  showy  dress.  It  is  the  function  of  the 
prophet  to  lead  his  flock  onward,  even 
though  the  march  be  sometimes  through 
the  wilderness,  and  they  ought  to  follow 
close  behind  him  and  tell  him  that  they 
are  there,  and  that  they  will  not  cease 
to  follow  till  he  has  brought  them  into 
the  fulness  of  the  Land  of  Promise. 
Under  those  conditions  a  man  will  feel 
bound  to  read  the  best  books  and  to 
think  out  every  subject  to  its  very 
heart ;  he  will  grudge  no  labor  of  brain, 
no  emotion  of  soul,  to  meet  the  expecta- 
tion of  a  thoughtful,  broad-minded 
people,  and  if  he  come  at  last  to  be 
a  leader  of  thought  whose  words  fly  far 


32  Church    Folks 

and  wide,  then  to  this  congregation  will 
the  credit  be  due  who  believed  in  him 
and  demanded  great  things  of  him  and 
made  more  of  him  than  he,  in  his  most 
ambitions  moment,  could  have  imag- 
ined. 

MiisrisTERS  Need  Cot^stattt  En-cour- 

AGEMENT. 

It  is  also  the  duty  of  the  members  of 
a  congregation  to  encourage  their  minis- 
ter, and  they  would  take  more  trouble 
to  do  so  if  they  only  knew  how  much 
he  needed  their  encouragement,  and  how 
much  he  would  thrive  upon  it.  They 
must  have  a  strong  imagination  in  order 
to  understand  the  trials  of  his  lot,  which 
are  different  from  those  of  every  other 
worker,  because  he  has  to  work  by  faith 
and  not  by  sight.  As  he  sits  in  his 
study  and  at  midday  has  not  written 
a  line  because  his  thoughts  would  not 
flow,  or  when  he  burns  four  hours'  work 


Church    Folks  3  3 

because  it  is  worthless,  the  minister 
looks  out  and  envies  a  workman  who, 
across  the  street,  has  completed  in  the 
same  time  so  many  feet  of  brickwork 
which  is  as  good  as  it  could  be,  and  will 
last  for  many  a  year.  As  he  visits  the 
sick  of  his  flock,  anxiously  looking  for 
some  sign  that  his  words  of  comfort  and 
advice  have  produced  their  due  effect, 
he  wishes  he  were  a  physician,  who  can 
see  the  good  he  does  and  has  his  quick 
reward  in  lives  saved  from  death — in 
bodies  relieved  from  pain.  It  some- 
times seems  to  the  minister  as  if  his 
words  from  week  to  week  were  wasted 
— so  much  water  poured  on  the  desert. 
From  the  very  nature  of  the  case  he 
cannot  discover  the  fruit  of  his  minis- 
try, and  therefore  others  should  tell  him 
that  he  has  not  labored  in  vain.  People 
are  quick  enough  to  criticise  a  sermon 
or  to  dwell  upon  the  fact  that  the  attend- 
ance has  been  a  little  scantier  of  late, 
but   is   there   nothing   else   they   could 


34 


Church    Folks 


nientioii  to  the  pastor  ?  Has  he  never 
thrown  light  on  some  difficult  passage 
of  Scripture  nor  stimulated  the  con- 
science to  the  sense  of  some  new  duty 
nor  sustained  the  heart  in  some  sorrow 
of  life  ?  Why  should  he  he  left  in  igno- 
rance who  waits  so  wistfully  for  news 
which  does  not  come  and  w^hich  would 
mean  so  much  1 

One  Letter  Which  Inspired  a 
Seemon". 

Let  me  take  you  to  the  interior  of 
a  study  where  the  minister  is  toiling 
with  laboring  oar  and  despairs  of  ever 
reaching  land.  The  forenoon  mail  ar- 
rives and  four  letters  are  laid  upon  his 
table:  one  is  uninteresting,  one  is  tire- 
some,  one  is  vexatious,  and  the  dis- 
heartened man  opens  the  fourth  letter 
with  a  sigh.  Another  complaint  from 
some  querulous  person ;  another  detail 
laid  on  a  w^eary  man !    What  is  this  ? 


Church    Folks  35 

"  My  Dear  Pastor  :  Tor  some  time  I  have 
wished  to  write  and  tell  you  what  a  help  you 
have  been  to  those  who  are  very  dear  to  me. 
Again  and  again  my  husband  has  been  cheered 
and  encouraged  in  his  light  to  do  what  is  right 
in  business  by  your  brave  words.  He  told  me 
one  Sunday  night  that  nothing  had  done  so 
much  to  keep  him  straight  as  your  sermons. 
You  know  that  Jack  made  us  rather  anxious 
for  some  time  because  he  seemed  careless  and 
indifferent  to  home.  Well,  he  has  quite  changed 
of  late,  and  is  so  attentive  to  me  and  nice  with 
his  father.  And  on  my  birthday  he  brought 
me  such  a  lovely  present,  for  which  he  must 
have  been  saving  during  months.  When  I 
told  him  how  grateful  I  was  he  only  said :  '  It 
was  that  sermon  on  sons  and  mothers  did  it.' 
And  now  last  Sunday  your  sermon  on  care 
seemed  to  be  written  for  me,  for  I  have  so  little 
faith  and  am  so  anxious.  So  I  must  tell  you 
that  you  have  inspired  the  life  of  one  house- 
hold and  that  we  bless  God  for  you. 

"  Yours  most  gratefully, 

"May  Harrison." 


It  may  not  seem  a  long  letter  nor  one 
difficult  to  understand,  but  the  minister 
was  not  satisfied  till  lie  had  read  it  six 
times.  And  although  it  may  not  seem 
a  learned  letter,  it  shed  such  a  flood  of 
light  on  the  text  that  the  minister's  pen 


36  Church    Folks 

flew.  He  locked  that  letter  up  in  his 
desk,  but  found  that  he  had  forgotten 
a  sentence,  so  it  was  more  convenient 
to  carry  it  in  his  pocket.  On  Sunday  he 
judged  it  necessary  to  read  that  letter 
before  going  to  church,  and  he  had  a 
last  peep  at  it  in  the  vestry.  And  the 
minister  preached  that  morning  with 
such  power  and  hope  that  even  the 
grumblers  were  satisfied,  and  the  con- 
gregation went  home  on  wings. 


III. 

The  Candy-Pull  System  in  the 
Church. 

As  I  write,  the  appeal  of  a  Young 
Men's  Christian  Association  to  its  mem- 
bers lies  on  the  table  before  me,  and  I 
copy  it  verbatim: 

"Do  Not  Forget 
The  next  Social 
The  next  Candy-pull 
The  next  Entertainment 
The  next  Song  Service 
The  next  Gospel  Meeting 
The  next  Meeting  of  the  Debating  Club 
The  next  Chicken-pie  Dinner 
The  next  date  when  you  ought  to  make  the 
secretary  happy  with  your  cash." 

This  remarkable  list  of  operations, 
combining    evangelistic    zeal,    creature 


38  Church    Folks 

comfortSj  and  business  shrewdness^  re- 
quires no  commentary:  the  items  give 
us  a  convincing  illustration  of  an  up- 
to-date  religious  institution — a  veritable 
hustler  of  a  Y.  M.  C.  A. 

Perhaps  one  department  of  the  work 
requires  a  word  of  explanation;  there 
may  be  some  persons  who  have  given 
considerable  attention  to  Christian 
agencies,  and  yet  whose  researches  may 
not  have  come  across  a  '^  candy-pulL" 
This  agency,  if  that  be  the  correct  word, 
is  a  party  of  young  men  and  women 
who  meet  for  the  purpose  of  pulling 
candy,  and,  in  the  case  of  the  co- 
operation of  sexes,  is  said  to  be  a  very 
engaging  employment.  It  may  be 
that  candy-pulling  on  the  part  of  a 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  is  confined  to  one  sex,  and 
is  therefore  shorn  of  half  its  attraction, 
but  one  clings  to  the  idea  that  in  these 
days  of  '^  pleasant"  religious  evenings 
the  young  men  woukl  not  be  left  to  their 
own  company. 


Church    Folks  39 

CONDUCTIKG     A     ChUECH     0:^"     MODERK 
LlISTES. 

The  Christian  church  and  a 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  are,  of  course,  very  differ- 
ent institutions,  and  the  latter  is  free 
from  any  traditions  of  austere  dignity; 
but  one  is  not  surprised  to  find  that  the 
church  has  also  been  touched  with  the 
social  spirit  and  is  also  doing  her  best  to 
make  religion  entertaining.  One  enters 
what  is  called  a  place  of  worship  and 
imagines  that  he  is  in  a  drawing-room. 
The  floor  has  a  thick  carpet,  there  are 
rows  of  theatre  chairs,  a  huge  organ  fills 
the  eye,  a  large  bouquet  of  flowers 
marks  the  minister's  place ;  people  come 
in  with  a  jaunty  air  and  salute  one 
another  cheerily;  hardly  one  bends  his 
head  in  prayer ;  there  is  a  hum  of  gossip 
through  the  building. 

A  man  disentangles  himself  from 
a  conversation  and  bustles  up  to  the 
platform  without  clerical  robes  of  any 


40  Church    Folks 

kind,  as  likely  as  not  in  layman's  dress. 
A  quartette  advances,  and,  facing  the 
audience,  sings  an  anthem  to  the  con- 
gregation, which  does  not  rise,  and  later 
they  sing  another  anthem,  also  to  the 
congregation.  There  is  one  prayer,  and 
one  reading  from  Holy  Scripture,  and 
a  sermon  which  is  brief  and  bright. 
Among  other  intimations  the  minister 
urges  attendance  at  the  Easter  supper, 
when,  as  is  mentioned  in  a  paper  in  the 
pews,  there  will  be  oysters  and  meat — 
turkey,  I  think — and  ice-cream.  This 
meal  is  to  be  served  in  the  '^  church 
parlor." 

As   SoON'  AS  THE  BEiq^EDICTIOIT  IS   SaID. 

^o  sooner  has  the  benediction  been 
pronounced,  which  has  some  original 
feature  introduced,  than  the  congrega- 
tion hurries  to  the  door;  but  although 
no  one  can  explain  how  it  is  managed, 
the  minister  is   already  there   shaking 


Church    Folks  4 1 

hands,  introducing  people,  "  getting  off 
good  things/'  and  generally  making 
things  '^  hum."  One  person  congratu- 
lates him  on  his  '^  talk" — new  name  for 
a  sermon — and  another  says  it  was 
''  fine." 

Efforts  have  heen  made  in  England 
also  to  make  church  life  really  popular, 
and,  in  one  town  known  to  the  Avriter, 
with  some  success  of  its  own  kind.  One 
church  secured  a  new  set  of  communion 
plate  by  the  popular  device  of  a  dance ; 
various  congregations  gave  private 
theatricals,  and  one  enterprising  body 
had  stage  property  of  its  own.  Bible 
classes  celebrated  the  conclusion  of 
their  session  by  a  supper ;  on  Good  Fri- 
days there  were  excursions  into  the 
country,  accompanied  by  a  military 
band,  and  a  considerable  portion  of  the 
congregational  income  was  derived  from 
social  treats  of  various  kinds.  This 
particular  tOAvn  is  only  an  illustration 
of  the  genial  spirit  spreading  through- 


42  church    Folks 

out  the  church  in  England.  One  min- 
ister uses  a  magic  lantern  to  give  force 
to  his  sermon ;  another  has  added  a  tav- 
ern to  his  church  equipment;  a  third 
takes  up  the  latest  murder  or  scandal; 
a  fourth  has  a  service  of  song;  a  fifth 
depends  on  a  gypsy  or  an  ex-pugilist. 

If  this  goes  on,  the  church  will  soon 
embrace  a  theatre  and  other  attractions 
which  will  draw  young  people  and  pre- 
vent old  people  from  wearying  in  the 
w^orship  of  God. 


Is  THE  IsTew  Departure  an  Improve- 
ment ? 

Perhaps  it  may  be  the  perversity  of 
human  nature  w^hich  is  apt  to  cavil  at 
new  things  and  hanker  after  the  good 
old  times — which  were  not  always  good, 
by  any  means — but  one  is  not  much 
enamored  with  the  new  departure  nor  at 
all  convinced  that  vdiat  may  be  called 
for  brief  the  ^^  Candy-pull"  system  is  any 


Church    Folks  43 

improvement  on  the  past.  After  a  slight 
experience  of  smart  preachers  and 
church  parlors  and  ice-cream  suppers 
and  picnics,  one  remembers  with  new 
respect  and  keen  appreciation  the  min- 
ister of  former  days,  with  his  seemly 
dress,  his  dignified  manner,  his  sense 
of  responsibility,  who  came  from  the 
secret  place  of  Divine  fellowship,  and 
spoke  as  one  carrying  the  message  of 
the  Eternal.  He  may  not  have  been  so 
fussy  in  the  aisles  as  his  successor  nor 
so  clever  at  games  nor  able  to  make  so 
fetching  a  speech  on  ^^  Love,  Courtship, 
and  Marriage." 

Was  the   Old-Time   Cleegyman^  too 

FOEMAE  ? 

The  members  of  his  congregation 
may  not  have  called  him  a  "  bright 
man"  nor  said  he  was  ^^  great  fun"  nor 
asked  him  so  often  to  tea-parties,  and  it 
may  be  granted  that  he  erred  on  the 


44  Church    Folks 

side  of  formality;  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  they  spoke  of  him  as  a  ^^  man  of 
God"  and  a  "  good  man,"  and  in  the 
straits  of  life  and  in  anxiety  of  con- 
science they  sent  for  him.  They  may 
not  have  liked  him  so  well  as  the  modern 
man,  but  they  respected  and  trusted 
him,  which  is  far  more  important. 

One  is  also  struck  by  the  change  in 
the  whole  environment  of  worship,  and 
there  may  be  a  difference  of  opinion 
whether  it  has  been  for  the  better  or 
the  worse.  The  church  of  our  fathers 
was  not  well  lighted  nor  scientifically 
ventilated  nor  elaborately  cushioned, 
and  all  there  could  be  seen  of  carpet 
was  on  the  pulpit  stairs.  The  church 
of  to-day  is  amazingly  decorated,  and 
bright  with  innumerable  electric  lights. 

CONGKEGATIONS    MeET     TO    LiSTEN     TO 

THE  Choir. 

The  service  of  the  past  was  musically 
imperfect  and  was  generally  too  long. 


Church    Folks  45 

To-day  the  tenor  in  tlie  choir  is  dis- 
missed if  his  voice  shows  signs  of  wear, 
and  the  people  sit  in  judgment  on  how 
the  anthem  has  been  ^'  attacked"  or 
"  rendered" — perhaps  it  was  '^  Holy, 
Holy,  Holy,  Lord  God  Almighty" — and 
there  is  a  notice  in  the  vestry  (or  minis- 
ter's parlor)  that  the  Scripture  lesson 
must  not  exceed  fifteen  verses — ten  is 
]3referred — and  the  prayers  must  not 
encroach  on  the  music,  and  the  sermon, 
whatever  be  its  subject,  even  though  it 
be  the  Judgment  Day,  must  be  ''  inter- 
esting." In  the  former  time  a  congrega- 
tion used  to  speak  of  a  sermon  as 
"  edifying"  or  '^  searching"  or  ^^  com- 
forting." I^ow  it  declares  that  the 
preacher  was  in  '^  great  form,"  or  it 
complains  that  he  was  ^'  off  color." 

There  are,  no  doubt,  many  points  in 
which  the  congregation  of  the  present 
has  advanced  on  the  congregation  of  the 
past,  but  it  has  not  been  all  gain,  for 
the  chief  note  in  the  worship  of  the 


46  Church    Folks 

former  generation  was  reverence — 
people  met  in  the  presence  of  the 
Eternal,  before  whom  every  man  is  less 
than  nothing.  And  the  chief  note  of 
their  children,  who  meet  to  listen  to  a 
choir  and  a  clever  platform  speaker,  is 
self-complacency. 

Feak  of  God   Seems  to  Have 
Departed. 

It  ought  to  be  granted  that  one  reason 
for  this  change  in  the  spirit  of  con- 
gregational life  is  a  reaction  from 
individualism  and  a  new  conception  of 
the  fellowship  of  the  Christian  church. 
A  religious  person  no  longer  thinks  of 
himself  as  a  solitary  unit,  isolated  from 
every  other  human  being  in  the  world, 
and  whose  chief  business  in  life  is  to 
save  his  own  soul.  He  has  realized  that 
his  life  is  bound  up  with  that  of  his 
neighbors,  and  that  he  is  a  member  of 
a   society  which   extends   over   all  the 


Church    Folks  47 

world;  that  lie  must  not  deny  his 
humanity,  and  that  in  saving  others  he 
is  also  saving  himself.  The  world  is 
no  longer  a  wilderness  through  which 
he  marches  a  pilgrim  and  stranger,  but 
his  birthplace,  to  which  he  owes  a  duty, 
and  religion  is  not  so  much  an  austere 
devotion  to  God  as  it  is  a  useful^  chari- 
table life. 

The  centre  of  thought  has,  in  fact, 
shifted  from  eternity  to  time,  from  th'^ 
worship  of  God  to  the  service  of  men. 
The  one  idea  was  enshrined  in  a  Puri- 
tan meeting,  where  each  man  waited  in 
wistful  expectation  for  a  sign  of  favor 
from  the  Almighty,  or  in  the  cathedral 
where  the  multitude  bowed  in  silent 
adoration  at  the  lifting  of  the  Host. 
The  other  idea  is  visible  in  the  building, 
more  concert-room  than  church,  where 
a  number  of  good  people  meet  in  high 
spirits  and  in  kindly  fellowship  to  move 
one  another  to  good  works,  and  to  sing 
hymns.     The  ancient  fear  of  God  seems 


48  Church    Folks 

to  have  departed  entirely,  and  with  it 
the  sense  of  the  unseen,  which  once 
constituted  the  spirit  of  worship. 

The  Up-to-Date   Ciiukch  Needs  an 

Annex. 

Religion,  it  is  urged  with  consider- 
able force,  must  provide  not  only  for 
the  soul,  but  also  for  the  mind  and  body, 
so  that  a  Christian  will  not  need  to  go 
outside  the  church  for  culture  or 
amusement.  If  he  want  relaxation, 
entertainments  must  be  provided  for 
him  at  his  church,  so  that  he  need  not  go 
into  worldly  society;  and  whatever  be 
his  intellectual  taste,  it  must  be  met  in 
his  ecclesiastical  home.  His  literary 
and  debating  society  and  drawing-room 
and  concert  must  be  all  under  one  roof, 
so  that  the  young  Christian  may  be 
sheltered  from  temptation. 

As  this  social  tendency  of  the  congre- 
gation is  becoming  more  marked  every 


Church    Folks  49 

year,  and  new  inventions  are  being 
added,  it  is  vain  to  urge  a  return  to  the 
simplicity  of  the  past,  when  a  congre- 
gation was  a  body  of  people  who  met 
to  worship  God  and  study  His  will; 
but  it  may  be  worth  while  to  point  to 
certain  drawbacks  in  the  new  develop- 
ment. For  one  thing,  if  congregations 
are  to  become  "  universal  providers," 
another  kind  of  minister  will  be  needed. 

How  THE  Modern  Minister  Pre- 
pares Himself. 

For  this  kind  of  institution  a  teacher 
to  expound  the  Bible  or  a  pastor  to 
train  the  character  of  his  people  is 
hardly  needed,  and  certainly  he  would 
not  be  appreciated.  The  chief  requisite 
demanded  is  a  sharp  man,  with  the 
gifts  of  an  impresario,  a  commercial 
traveller,  and  an  auctioneer  combined, 
with  the  slightest  flavor  of  a  peripatetic 
evangelist.      Instead   of   a   study   lined 


50  Church    Folks 

with  books  of  grave  divinity  and  classi- 
cal literature,  let  him  have  an  office 
with  pigeon-holes  for  his  programmes 
and  endless  correspondence;  cupboards 
for  huge  books,  with  cuttings  from 
newspapers  and  reports  of  other  organ- 
izations; a  telephone  ever  tingling,  and 
a  set  of  handbooks :  ^'  How  to  Make 
a  Sermon  in  Thirty  Minutes,"  or  '^  One 
Thousand  Eacy  Anecdotes  from  the 
Mission  Field.'' 

Here  sits  an  alert,  vivacious,  inven- 
tive manager,  with  his  female  stenog- 
rapher at  a  side  table,  turning  over  one 
huge  book  to  discover  who  is  next  in 
order  of  time  for  visitation,  and  another 
for  details  of  families,  or  hastily  exam- 
ining filed  speeches  of  public  men  on 
some  subject  to  be  taken  on  Sunday. 
From  morning  to  night  he  toils,  tele- 
phoning, telegraphing,  dictating,  com- 
piling, hurrying  around,  conducting 
"  socials  "  or  '^  bright  evenings,"  giving 
'^  talks,"    holding    receptions,    an    un- 


Church    Folks  5 1 

wearied,  adroit,  persevering  man.  'No 
one  can  help  admiring  liis  versatility 
and  honesty  of  intention;  but  if  he  is 
to  be  the  type  of  the  minister  of  the 
future,  then  he  will  supersede  and  ex- 
clude a  better  man. 

Should  the  Pulpit  be  Given  to 
Managers  ? 

There  are  men  who  possess  every 
becoming  gift  of  learning  and  insight 
and  devotion  and  charity  who  are  abso- 
lutely incapable  of  ''  running"  a  church 
on  modern  lines.  They  could  guide 
a  soul  in  spiritual  peril,  but  they  have 
no  talent  for  amusing  young  people; 
they  can  declare  the  Everlasting  Gospel 
of  the  Divine  Sacrifice,  but  they  have 
no  turn  for  machinery;  they  can  ex- 
pound the  principles  of  righteousness, 
but  they  refuse  to  meddle  with  a  recent 
strike  of  motormen. 
As  regards  the  gain  of  the  new  depart- 


52   .  Church    Folks 

ure,  is  it  certain  that  the  socializing  of 
the  Church  will  make  her  creed  and  life 
attractive  ?  If  it  come  to  be  a  competi- 
tion between  the  amnsements  of  the 
Chnrcli  (or  her  feasts)  and  the  amuse- 
ments of  the  world  (and  its  feasts),  is 
there  any  sane  person  who  thinks  that 
the  Church  can  v/in  ?  Like  Caesar,  the 
world  offers  her  magnificent  shows;  the 
Church,  like  Christ,  presents  the  vic- 
torious Cross. 

The  Ciiukch  Must  Not  Leave  Her 
High  Place. 

Why  should  the  Church  leave  her 
high  place  and  come  down  into  the 
arena,  where  she  will  be  put  to  shame  ? 
Do  men  come  to  church  for  petty  pleas- 
ures fit  only  for  children  or  for  the 
satisfaction  of  their  souls  and  the  con- 
firmation of  their  faith  ?  Would  Chris- 
tianity have  begun  to  exist  if  the 
Apostles  had  been  "  pleasing  preachers" 


church    Folks 


53 


and  ^^  bright  men"  and  had  given  them- 
selves to  ^^  socials''  and  "  sales"  and 
"  talks  "  ?  The  Church  triumphed  by 
her  faith,  her  holiness,  her  courage,  and 
by  these  high  virtues  she  must  stand  in 
this  age  also.  She  is  the  witness  to 
immortality,  the  spiritual  home  of 
souls,  the  servant  of  the  poor,  the  pro- 
tector of  the  friendless ;  and  if  she  sinks 
into  a  place  of  second-rate  entertain- 
ment, then  it  were  better  that  her 
history  should  close,  for  without  her 
spiritual  visions  and  austere  ideals  the 
Church  is  not  worth  preserving. 


IV. 

The   Mutineer  in   the   Church. 

It  takes  all  kinds  of  people  to  make 
a  world,  and  it  takes  almost  as  many 
kinds  to  make  a  congregation,  bnt  it  is 
not  necessary  for  congregational  com- 
pleteness to  possess  a  mutineer.  By  a 
mutineer  one  means  a  person  we  can 
easily  identify,  and  at  whose  hands 
most  congregations  have  sometimes 
suffered.  He  is  not  to  be  confounded 
with  a  Christian  of  old-fashioned 
opinions,  who  is  occasionally  disturbed 
by  a  sermon  on  ^^  The  Fatherhood  of 
God,"  and  will  come  to  the  minister's 
study  to  explain  that  he  has  always 
believed  God  to  be  a  judge.     This  man 


Church    Folks  55 

is  perfectly  honest,  and  ought  to  be 
treated  with  all  consideration,  because 
he  is  simply  loyal  to  his  hereditary 
faith,  and  all  the  time  would  like  to 
receive  the  new  gospel.  Let  him  have 
a  warm  corner  in  the  room,  and  a  com- 
fortable seat,  and  free  opportunity  to 
run  through  as  many  texts  as  he  wishes, 
and  a  candid  hearing  unto  the  hour  of 
midnight.  He  is  open  to  conviction, 
and  even  if  he  leave  unconvinced,  he 
will  not  go  to  set  fire  to  the  congrega- 
tion. 'Not  he ;  but  he  will  explain  every- 
where that  the  minister  is  a  faithful 
Bible  student  and  a  patient  pastor,  and 
that  it  is  a  privilege  and  a  responsibility 
to  sit  in  his  church. 


Do   ISToT   Coi^FOUND   Him   with   the 
Restless  Pekson". 

^N'or  must  the  word  be  applied  to  one 
of  those  restless  people  who  are  ever 
detecting  some  fault  in  affairs  and  who 


56  Church    Folks 

weary  every  jDerson  with  random  sug- 
gestions. One  week  he  writes  that  a 
woman  was  turned  away  from  the 
church  prayer-meeting  because  the  hall 
was  full — the  minister  is  always 
amused  with  this  mythical  person  and 
wishes  he  could  see  her  in  the  flesh — 
and  he  suggests  that  the  weekday  ser- 
vice should  be  held  in  the  church.  He 
knows  a  hundred  peoj)le  who  would  be 
willing  to  come — and  this  also  pleases 
the  minister  very  much,  because  the 
good  man  hardly  ever  attends  himself. 
ISText  week  some  mysterious  person 
informs  this  man  that  he  has  caught 
cold  through  the  draught  from  one  of 
the  windows,  and  our  friend  writes 
sixteen  pages  to  advocate  window  cur- 
tains, which  would  make  St.  Peter's 
itself  hideous  and  worship  impossible 
for  all  self-respecting  people.  A  month 
later  this  same  man  is  convinced  that 
the  whole  congregation  is  a  rope  of 
sand,  and  ought  to  be  bound  up  by  a 


Church    Folks  57 

general  visitation  on  the  part  of  the 
office  bearers,  for  which  he  is  good 
enough  to  sketch  a  plan;  and  every 
other  week  he  will  make  a  new  sugges- 
tion in  a  voluminous  letter,  till  his 
brethren  are  apt  to  say  strong  words 
about  his  meddlesomeness. 


Teeat  the  Kestless  Person  with 
Kespect. 

His  brethren  ought  rather  to  possess 
their  souls  in  patience  and  treat  the 
worthy  man  kindly,  for  there  is  not 
a  grain  of  mischief  in  him,  nor  is  there 
a  better-hearted  man  in  the  whole  con- 
gregation. He  will  be  quite  pleased  if 
he  gets  a  civil  answer,  and  I  would 
suggest  this  form  for  such  occasions: 

"Dear  Mr.  Jump:  I  have  received  your 
interesting  letter  and  note  your  suggestion 
about  the  curtains.  The  matter  is  one  which 
will  require  careful  consideration,  and  I  hasten 
to  assure  you  that  it  is  encouraging  to  the 
minister    and   workers   of   the   clnirch   to   find 


58  Church    Folks 

that  the  welfare  of  our  church  in  every  respect 
lies  so  near  your  heart.  With  very  warm  re- 
gard, believe  me, 

"  Yours  faithfully, 

"  Job  Holdfast,  Pastor." 

Mr.  Jump  will  be  quite  satisfied  with 
this  letter,  and  in  twenty-four  hours 
will  have  forgotten  that  he  ever  pro- 
posed curtains.  It  will  be  worth  while 
for  a  congregation  to  engage,  say,  one 
Jump,  just  to  note  defects  and  to  keep 
things  moving.  Two  Jumps  might  be 
too  much  for  the  congregation,  and  they 
had  better  dispose  of  the  second. 

The  Ovek-Sensitive  Chuech 
Member. 

There  is  another  person  who  ought 
not  to  be  considered  a  mutineer,  al- 
though he  is  very  wrong-headed  and 
may  become  a  real  nuisance.  He  is  the 
man  who  is  apt  to  be  offended  and  to 
be  "  hurt,"  as  he  calls  it,  because  some 
one    passed    him    at    the    church    door 


Church    Folks  59 

without  speaking,  or  "  said  things " 
about  him — he  knows  not  what — behind 
his  back,  or  objected  to  some  plan  which 
he  proposed,  or  refused  to  do  something 
he  asked.  Having  worried  his  wife 
about  the  matter,  and  talked  himself 
into  a  fever  of  wounded  vanity,  he  gives 
everybody  to  understand  that  he  has 
a  grievance,  and  assumes  the  air  of  a 
martyr.  As  a  formal  protest  he  may 
even  absent  himself  from  church  for 
two  Sundays,  and  will  be  still  further 
hurt  if  no  one  calls  to  inquire  the 
reason.  Of  course,  he  is  very  provoking, 
but  there  is  no  malice  in  the  man,  and 
he  ought  to  be  gently  treated.  It  is  his 
misfortune  rather  than  his  fault  that 
he  has  no  scarf-skin  and  no  protection 
against  the  inevitable  friction  of  life. 
A  gentle  touch  and  a  liberal  use  of 
spiritual  ointment  will  cure  his  wounds 
— or,  rather,  scratches. 


6o  Church    Folks 

How  TO  Detect  the  Genuine 
Mutineer. 

The  Tnutineer  is  of  another  breed  and 
is  an  able-bodied  miscreant,  who  will 
strike  a  hard  blow  whenever  he  can  get 
an  opportiinitv,  and  at  any  person 
whom  he  can  reach.  His  sole  desire  is 
to  do  mischief,  and  the  more  pain  he 
gives  the  better  is  he  pleased.  He  will 
write  insulting  letters  to  the  minister, 
charging  him  with  every  sin  from 
heresy  to  lying.  He  will  get  up  a  public 
controversy  about  the  affairs  of  the  con- 
gregation in  any  newspaper  which  is 
foolish  enough  to  insert  his  letters.  He 
will  attack  the  most  reasonable  pro- 
posals of  the  office  bearers,  and  impute 
to  them  the  worst  motives.  He  will  move 
through  the  congregation  as  an  incen- 
diary, and  set  fire  to  every  inflammable 
person.  When  he  is  in  his  glory  he  will 
threaten  proceedings  in  the  church 
courts  or  in  the  civil  courts;   and  al- 


Church    Folks  6 1 

though  he  will  never  carry  them  out, 
being  a  coward  as  well  as  a  bully,  he 
will  take  the  preliminary  steps,  which 
cause  talk  and  alarm.  It  will  also  be 
part  of  his  rule  to  pose  as  a  straight- 
forw^ard  and  honest  man  of  unflinching 
rectitude  and  spiritual  aims.  What  he 
does  will  always  be  under  constraint  of 
conscience,  and  he  will  summon  himself 
and  his  opponents  with  much  rhetorical 
effect  before  the  bar  of  eternal  justice. 
He  is  so  big  and  blatant,  and  good 
people  are  so  charitable  and  easily 
cowed,  that  they  often  take  this  man  at 
his  own  value  and  come  to  terms  with 
him. 

He  Should  Receive  Little  Con- 
sideratioisj". 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  is  an  utter 
humbug  from  every  point  of  view,  and 
ought  to  receive  no  mercy,  ^'either  his 
opinions  nor  his  feelings  nor  his  com- 
plaints   nor    his    threatenings    should 


62  Church    Folks 

receive  one  moment's  consideration. 
His  first  challenge  should  be  accepted 
as  a  declaration  of  war,  and  the  war 
had  better  be  without  quarter;  and  it 
is  astonishing  how  soon  this  brigand 
can  be  brought  to  his  senses  and  to 
abject  submission. 

Should  he  be  established  in  a  con- 
gregation and  have  shown  his  hand,  the 
wisest  jjlan  is  to  give  him  notice  to  quit. 
It  is  not  usual  to  ask  any  member  to 
leave  a  church,  and  very  unusual  if  he 
happen  to  be  a  man  of  substance  and 
position,  as  this  fellow  often  is;  but 
congregations  are  much  too  anxious  to 
keep  every  person,  and  much  too  slow 
to  recognize  that  some  men's  absence  is 
more  profitable  than  their  presence. 
Their  presence  simply  means  turmoil 
and  heartburnings,  their  absence  peace 
and  prosperity;  their  presence  soon 
drives  many  quiet  folk  away;  their 
absence  would  remove  a  stumbling- 
block. 


Church    Folks  63 

His  Influence  is  Always  Detri- 
mental. 

Should  he  apply  for  admission  to 
a  church  where  his  character  is  known, 
then  he  should  be  plainly  refused.  Why 
should  any  minister,  if  it  depend  on 
him,  receive  a  man  who  has  half -broken 
another  minister's  heart  ?  Why  should 
a  congregation  give  house  room  to  a 
man  who  has  reduced  the  affairs  of  an- 
other to  ruin  ?  The  chances  are  he  has 
left  like  an  army  which  has  eaten  up 
one  country  and  now  must  go  to  devas- 
tate another.  If  there  be  any  power 
in  a  congregation  that  can  do  it,  let  the 
door  be  slammed  in  this  man's  face,  and 
as  he  wanders  about  churchless  perhaps 
he  may  learn  wisdom. 

Should  any  one  say  that  we  are  treat- 
ing the  mutineer  unkindly  and  un- 
Christianly,  then  he  is  carried  away  by 
an  excess  of  charity  and  is  not  facing 
the  facts.     To  deal  kindly  with  a  muti- 


64  Church    Folks 

neer  is  to  be  cruel  to  the  minister  and 
the  congregation.  Although  he  be  only 
a  single  individnalj  there  is  no  end  to 
the  mischief  which  this  man  can  do. 
For  one  thing,  he  will  gravely  affect 
the  preacher,  and  that  in  ways  which 
the  congregation  can  hardly  imagine. 
jSTo  preacher  Avho  is  worth  the  name 
writes  his  sermons  without  reference 
to  his  congregation,  as  if  he  were  liv- 
ing in  another  planet  and  were  dealing 
only  with  the  ideas  of  the  study.  As 
he  sits  at  the  table  he  is  really  in  the 
pulpit  and  the  congregation  in  the 
pews;  he  speaks  to  them,  and  they  re- 
spond; he  sees  one  head  lifted  and 
another  cast  down,  one  rebuked  and 
another  comforted,  till  the  books  of  the 
study  disappear  and  the  room  is  full  of 
human  feeling.  It  is  in  this  atmosphere 
that  the  preaclier  will  do  his  best  work 
and  most  perfectly  fulfil  his  mission. 
Suppose,  therefore,  that  at  the  end  of 
a  pew — and  .'that  is  where  he  is  certain 


Church    Folks  6^ 

to  be,  in  some  prominent  place — this 
rebel  is  sitting,  pugnacious,  insolent, 
and  defiant:  is  he  not  apt  to  be  an 
influence  in  the  sermon? 


Effect  of  His  Presence  in  the 
CnuKCH. 

ISTo  doubt  there  are  men  with  such 
mental  self-control  and  superb  indiffer- 
ence to  circumstances  that  they  will 
ignore  his  existence.  These  are  men 
of  the  great  order,  and  one  cannot 
expect  manj  in  the  ministry  or  in  any 
profession.  For  them  there  are  no 
rules,  and  for  them  no  hindrances ;  they 
are  invulnerable  and  irresistible.  Upon 
ordinary  men  the  mutineer  has  an  irri- 
tating and  deflecting  power,  so  that 
a  preacher,  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
is  ever  taking  him  into  account,  and  the 
sermon's  course  is  to  a  certain  extent 
regulated  by  this  man's  existence.  If 
the  minister  be   a  gentle   and   fearful 


66  Church    Folks 

man,  he  is  apt  to  be  over-considerate, 
and  will  omit  things  which  he  ought 
to  have  said  lest  he  should  give  offence. 
Instead  of  the  sermon's  pursuing  its 
straight  way  and  reaching  its  destina- 
tion with  as  little  loss  of  distance  as 
possible,  it  will  be  timid  and  subdued 
in  style.  The  preacher  will  be  continu- 
ally qualifying  in  order  not  to  be  caught 
by  this  critic,  or  he  will  be  continually 
deferring  lest  he  should  give  offence  to 
this  mighty  man.  People  will  have 
a  vague  sense  of  weakness,  but  they  may 
never  guess  the  cause. 

The  Preacher's  Way  of  Dealing 
WITH  Him. 

Suppose,  however,  the  preacher  be 
a  strong  and  determined  man,  but  not 
one  of  the  larger  minds  and  the  broader 
vision,  then  the  mutineer  will  affect 
him  after  another  fashion.  From  the 
beginning  of  the  sermon  the  preacher 


Church    Folks  67 

will  set  himself  to  deal  with  this  man 
and  to  bring  him  to  his  senses.  His 
character  and  his  actions  will  be  de- 
scribed and  denounced  and  satirized 
and  threatened.  He  will  be  pelted  with 
the  judgments  of  Holy  Scripture;  its 
commandments  will  be  laid  to  his  back 
like  a  lash ;  the  invitations  of  the  Gospel 
will  be  denied  him,  and  the  historical 
rascals  of  the  Bible  will  be  suggested 
as  his  photograph.  Unto  any  one  who 
understands  the  allusion  it  will  seem 
that  this  man  is  being  hardly  dealt 
with ;  but  to  any  one  who  thinks  a  little 
deeper  it  will  be  seen  that  the  preacher 
is  the  victim.  The  preacher  has  grown 
sour  and  vindictive ;  the  sermon  has  lost 
its  grace  and  tenderness;  and  I  know 
not  which  is  the  greater  calamity:  a 
preacher  without  magnanimity  or  a  ser- 
mon without  nobility. 


68  Church    Folks 

He  is  a  Disturbin^g  Factor  Every- 
where. 

Eemove  this  man  from  his  place  in 
that  church  and  the  minister  will  give 
himself  without  disturbance  to  deal 
both  with  saints  and  sinners  in  the  love 
of  God. 

The  mutineer  will  also  distinguish 
himself  in  arresting  the  activity  of  the 
church  both  in  work  and  giving.  Should 
he  have  a  place,  say,  in  the  Sunday- 
school,  he  will  quarrel  with  the  superin- 
tendent and  every  one  of  the  teachers 
in  turn  till  he  has  the  school  to  himself, 
and  then  he  will  lament  the  decay  of 
Christian  sacrifice  in  the  spirit.  If 
he  be  appointed  treasurer  of  a  fund 
under  the  idea  that  this  will  give  him 
something  to  do,  he  will  be  such  an 
offence  that  no  one  will  subscribe;  and 
if  he  be  not  treasurer,  he  will  declare 
everywhere  that  the  fund  does  more 
mischief    than    good,    and    that    those 


Church    Folks  69 

desiring    the    welfare    of    the    church 
should  not  subscribe. 

And  besides  all  these  mischievous 
achievements,  he  will  poison  the  life  of 
the  church  so  that,  instead  of  being 
gracious  and  harmonious,  it  will  become 
bitter  and  quarrelsome.  If  there  be 
a  dispute  in  the  church,  this  man  will 
foment  it;  and  if  it  be  possible  to  set 
two  people  by  the  ears,  he  will  do  it. 
When  there  is  an  honest  difference  of 
opinion  he  will  see  that  it  be  turned 
into  a  feud;  and  if  a  new  proposal  be 
put  before  the  people,  he  will  get  up 
an  acrimonious  debate. 

Effectual  Methods  of  Treating 
Him. 

Perhaps  the  most  effectual  system 
with  such  a  man  is  not  scolding  and 
storming,  but  a  policy  of  isolation.  As 
nature  makes  a  cyst  and  encloses  any 
strange  material  so  that  it  be  kept  sepa- 


JO  Church    Folks 

rate  from  the  body,  let  this  man  be 
imprisoned  in  a  place  by  himself.  If 
he  should  offer  any  remark  upon  church 
affairs,  let  the  other  person  answer  on 
the  state  of  the  weather;  and  if  he 
criticise  a  sermon,  say  that  he  is  sorry 
to  hear  of  his  dyspepsia.  If  he  rise  to 
speak  at  a  church  meeting,  let  the 
silence  be  such  as  may  be  felt,  and  after 
he  has  spoken  let  the  chairman  call  for 
the  next  business  as  if  he  had  never 
existed.  If  he  has  ever  to  be  spoken  to, 
the  best  plan  is  to  treat  him  as  an 
absurdity,  and  play  around  him  with 
ridicule,  for  this  will  give  much  inno- 
cent amusement  to  other  people,  and  it 
is  the  particular  attack  which  he  cannot 
stand.  Between  loneliness  and  laughter 
he  will  depart  to  another  church,  and 
then  let  the  happy  congregation  sing 
the  Te  Deum. 


Should  the  Old  Cleegyman  be 
Shot  ? 

One  day,  and  perhaps  quite  sud- 
denly, a  congregation  awakens  to  the 
fact  that  a  certain  calamity  has  befallen 
the  minister  which  will  cripple  his 
power  more  and  more  every  day  and 
may  also  ruin  the  life  of  the  congrega- 
tion. It  has  nothing  to  do  with  his 
character,  for  he  is  really  a  much  holier 
man,  and  perhaps  also  a  much  wiser 
one,  than  he  was  twenty  years  before, 
and  certainly  he  commits  fewer  mis- 
takes in  word  and  deed  than  in  the  days 
of  his  youth.  [N'or  does  it  concern  his 
pastoral  work — for  he  is  more  than 
ever  the  counsellor  and  friend  of  the 


72  Church    Folks 

people,  speaking  to  them  from  a  richer 
experience  of  life  and  a  larger  charity. 
It  is  not  right  to  say  that  it  touches  his 
preaching,  for  that  is  likely  to  be  quite 
as  solid  and  as  useful  as  it  ever  was. 
Indeed,  he  is  saying  the  very  things  he 
used  to  say  with  much  acceptance,  and 
in  the  way  he  used  to  say  them — long 
ago. 

Nothing  is  wrong  with  him,  only  that 
he  does  not  walk  so  quickly  as  he  used 
to,  that  he  speaks  a  little  more  slowly, 
and  that  last  week  he  had  to  get  older 
spectacles,  that  he  does  not  always  hear 
what  is  said  to  him,  that  his  hair  is 
passing  from  gray  to  white,  that  he  is 
fatigued  when  going  up  a  hill.  It  has 
happened  to  him  just  as  it  happens  to 
other  men:  the  minister  is  getting  old. 

Old  Ministees  Impekvious  to  E'ew 
Ideas. 

As  soon  as  they  realize  the  fact — and 
it  may  be  years  before  they  do  notice 


Church    Folks  73 

it — the  heads  of  a  congregation  begin 
to  grow  uneasy.  Age  has  its  advantages 
in  the  office  of  the  ministry,  but  it  has 
also  very  evident  disadvantages,  and 
when  the  balance  is  struck  perhaps  a 
congregation  is  right  in  the  idea  that 
it  is  losing,  and  not  gaining,  under  the 
ministry  of  an  old  man.  For  one  thing 
— and  it  is  a  very  serious  one — a  minis- 
ter after  a  certain  age  is  almost  imper- 
vious to  new  ideas.  Of  course,  the 
exact  age  will  vary  with  different  men, 
and  it  is  dangerous  even  to  hint  at  it, 
since  the  reader  would  always  be  able 
to  mention  exceptions.  There  are  men 
to  whose  minds  no  new  idea  can  find 
access  at  the  age  of  thirty — men  of 
hopeless  dulness,  who  will  be  an  incubus 
on  a  congregation  all  their  days;  and 
there  are  men  whose  minds  will  be 
hospitable  to  the  latest  ideas  at  the  age 
of  fourscore — men  of  unique  mental 
freshness  and  vivacity. 

With  the  average  man  there  comes 


74  Church    Folks 

a  time  when  his  mind  crystallizes  and 
his  beliefs  become  absolutely  fixed.  He 
may  not  resent  the  discoveries  of 
younger  men;  he  certainly  will  not 
assimilate  them.  He  may  not  oppose 
new  methods  of  action;  he  certainly 
will  not  adopt  them.  His  preaching  may 
be  absolutely  as  good  as  it  was  before, 
because  it  will  be  the  same,  without  any 
addition  of  new  thought ;  but  it  may  be 
bad,  comparatively  speaking,  because 
it  should  have  much  new  material  and 
should  also  be  in  much  closer  touch 
with  the  age. 

He  Comes  to  be  a  Brake  Upon"  the 
Coach. 

With  middle  age  there  is  apt  to  set 
in  a  suspicion  of  the  rising  generation 
and  a  keen  resentment  of  its  stand- 
point, so  that  the  middle-aged  man  falls 
into  a  critical  and  pessimistic  mood. 
He  comes  to  be  a  brake  upon  the  coach, 


Church    Folks  y^ 

and  while  the  brake  is  a  useful  thing 
in  its  ovm.  place,  it  is  a  poor  substitute 
for  horses. 

If  his  work  be  in  a  city  church,  it  is 
a  grave  question  whether  any  minister 
can  now  discharge  it  with  efficiency 
who  is  above  sixty  years  of  age.  The 
multitude  of  details  in  a  city  parish, 
the  excitement  of  the  life,  the  severe 
demand  upon  the  mind,  and  the  heavy 
burden  of  responsibility  call  for  a 
man  in  the  prime  of  life,  with  an  alert 
intellect  and  an  unfailing  body.  It  is 
likely  as  time  goes  on  that  men  after, 
say,  twenty  years  in  a  city  will  have 
to  retire  and  take  some  quieter  sphere 
in  the  country.  They  will  be  put,  as  it 
"^vere,  upon  the  semi-retired  list. 

Besides,  as  one  cannot  fail  to  no- 
tice, the  average  man  of  middle  age 
in  bidding  good-by  finally  to  youth 
himself  also  largely  isolates  himself 
from  young  people.  They  may  be 
respectful    to    him,    and    he    may    be 


j6  Church    Folks 

interested  in  them,  but  there  is  now  no 
common  language  and  no  common  sym- 
pathy. They  are  apt  to  think  him  an 
^''  old  fogy"  (and  as  a  middle-aged  man 
myself  I  am  inclined  to  think  we  do 
grow  old-fogyish),  and  he  is  apt  to 
think  them  frivolous.  There  are  few 
men  who  can  bridge  the  gulf  between 
two  generations  and  be  equally  accept- 
able both  to  the  young  and  to  the  old, 
and  the  difficulty  will  increase  rather 
than  diminish.  And  all  this  is  the 
penalty  of  growing  old  or  even  passing 
middle  age. 

One  Eminen^t  Clergyman  Suggested 
Shooting. 

What,  then,  is  to  be  done  with  this 
unfortunate  man  ?  And  the  difficulty 
has  been  felt  so  acutely  that  a  distin- 
guished divine  of  our  day — who  is  now 
dead — proposed  that  a  minister  who 
was  past  his  prime  should  be  taken  out 


church    Folks  ']j 

(I  presume  to  some  sheltered  spot) 
and  shot.  His  idea  was  that  clerical 
incumbents  should  be  treated  after  the 
same  fashion  as  worn-out  horses.  It 
has  always  been  dangerous  to  use  irony 
in  England  since  the  days  of  Swift,  for 
although  the  English  people  may  have 
every  other  quality  imder  the  sun,  they 
certainly  have  not  a  quick  sense  of 
humor,  and  I  am  not  certain  that  some 
people  did  not  think  that  this  eminent 
person  was  serious  in  his  savage  sug- 
gestion. Certainly  he  expressed  the 
mind  of  some  ungrateful  and  miserable 
congregations,  who  would  be  immensely 
relieved  to  get  rid  of  an  old  servant  in 
the  quickest  and  cheapest  fashion. 
Perhaps,  also,  it  would  be  the  kindest 
thing  to  the  minister  when  he  discovers 
himself  to  be  an  incumbrance  on  those 
whom  he  loves  and  who  once  loved  him, 
to  give  him  by  some  means  the  cowp  de 
grace;  but  there  are  objections  on  the 
part  of  an  interfering  law  to  this  sum- 


78  Church    Folks 

mary  method  of  disposal,  and  one  must 
abandon  the  idea  of  an  ecclesiastical 
knacker's  yard. 

If  He  Had  Any  Sei^se  of  Propeiety 
He  Would  Die. 

You  have,  then,  four  courses  of  ac- 
tion with  this  unfortunate  man,  who,  if 
he  had  had  any  sense  of  propriety  would 
have  died  decently  of  a  short  and 
pathetic  illness  at  the  age  of  fifty-five, 
and  the  first  is  that  the  congregation  do 
nothing  and  he  be  allowed  to  live  out 
his  days  in  the  pulpit.  Very  likely  he 
used  to  say  about  the  age  of  thirty  that 
he  would  never  continue  in  the  ministry 
after  his  leaf  had  become  yellow;  that 
he  wondered  how  old  men  could  not  see 
that  their  day  was  past,  and  that  it 
would  be  better  for  them  to  be  pottering 
about  in  a  country  garden.  When  he 
said  these  brave  things  he  was  standing 
on  the  other  side  of  the  hedge,  and  now. 


Church    Folks  79 

when  he  is  double  the  age,  he  has  quite 
another  view  of  the  situation.  He 
declares  that  he  never  felt  younger  in 
his  life  and  never  more  fit  to  preach. 
At  times  he  grows  heroic,  and  declares 
that  as  long  as  he  can  crawl  he  will 
moimt  the  jDulpit  stairs  and  that  he  will 
die  in  harness. 

Foolish  people  (mostly  old  ladies) 
will  tell  him  that  he  never  preached  so 
ably  as  he  did  last  Sunday,  and  he  will 
incline  his  ear  to  this  little  circle  of 
admirers  and  will  refuse  the  advice  of 
sensible  men  who  have  his  welfare  at 
heart  and  who  suggest  to  him  that  he 
should  of  his  own  accord  resign  the 
office  he  has  so  honorably  filled.  So  it 
will  come  to  pass  that  church  and  city 
will  see  one  of  the  saddest  tragedies: 
a  man  scattering  the  congregation  he 
once  gathered  and  flinging  away  the 
reputation  he  once  won. 


8o  Church    Folks 

To  Suggest  a  Colleague  Does  ^ot 
Please. 

Or  the  congregation  may  pluck  up 
courage  and  insist  upon  the  worthy  old 
gentleman  having  a  colleague.  "  We 
do  not  want  to  lose  your  services/'  it  is 
explained  to  the  minister  by  some 
shrewd  diplomat  who  .knows  that  the 
minister,  not  to  speak  of  the  minister's 
wife,  is  watching  him  all  the  time  with 
suspicious  eyes.  "  We  only  wish  to 
relieve  you  of  the  heavy  end  of  your 
work.  Would  it  not  be  a  good  thing 
that  we  should  secure  a  vigorous  young 
man  who  would  take  care  of  the  classes 
and  all  the  details  of  the  church  work, 
and  preach  once  a  day  to  save  you 
fatigue  and  allow  you  to  go  for  a 
lengthened  holiday  from  time  to  time? 
You  have  been  very  good  in  not  asking 
relief  from  preaching,  but  the  congrega- 
tion feels  that  it  is  only  a  bare  duty  to 
give    you    permanent    assistance.      Be- 


Church    Folks  8i 

sides/'  and  now  the  ambassador  feels 
that  the  minister's  wife  is  regarding 
him  with  contempt  as  a  detected  cheat 
and  an  utter  humbug,  '^  it  would  be 
a  good  thing  for  a  young  man  to  have 
the  benefit  of  your  preaching  and 
advice." 

Very  likely  the  old  gentleman,  after 
a  conference  with  his  wife  and  her  lady 
friends,  will  refuse  to  have  anything 
to  do  with  a  colleague,  and  will  explain 
that  he  will  propose  such  a  measure  him- 
self as  soon  as  he  really  finds  it  neces- 
sary, and  meantime  that  nothing  could 
be  worse  for  a  young  man  than  to  be 
going  about  doing  nothing.  He  will 
perhaps  add,  and  add  it  with  deep  re- 
gret, that  he  is  assured  by  influential 
members  of  the  congregation  that  the 
intrusion  of  a  colleague  would  undo  all 
the  work  that  has  been  done  and  rend 
the  church  in  twain. 


82  Church    Folks 

Tkouble   When"  He   Consents   to 
Have  a  Colleague. 

Should,  however,  the  minister  agree 
to  a  colleague,  the  result  in  nine  cases 
out  of  ten  will  be  disastrous.  Either 
the  old  man  will  so  dominate  his 
younger  brother  that  the  latter  will 
have  no  room  for  his  individuality  and 
will  never  rise  to  his  height,  or  the 
young  man  will  set  himself  against  the 
old,  and  with  the  younger  people  at  his 
back  will  drive  the  senior  minister  from 
the  church.  It  is  indeed  an  unreasona- 
ble and  unnatural  position  that  two  men 
should  have  equal  authority,  and  all 
the  more  so  when  they  are  both  so 
dependent  on  popular  opinion.  Was  it 
ever  heard  of  that  there  should  be  two 
captains  in  one  ship,  two  commanders- 
in-chief  in  one  army,  or  even  two  engi- 
neers working  one  engine  ?  And  yet 
sane  people  will  propose,  not  that  a 
minister     should     have     assistants     or 


Church    Folks  83 

curates,  but  that  he  should  have  a  col- 
league to  share  with  him  equal  author- 
ity and  equal  responsibility. 


Forcing  the   Old  Minister   to 
Retire. 

Of  course,  a  congregation  may  make 
it  so  uncomfortable  for  the  man  who 
has  served  it  during  the  best  years  of 
his  life  that  he  will  have  no  alternative, 
and  will  be  glad  to  leave,  even  if  he  go 
to  obscurity  and  poverty.  And  when 
a  congregation  takes  this  way  of  cutting 
the  knot  one  almost  despairs  of  Chris- 
tianity. The  meanest  merchant  who 
ever  wrangled  over  a  cent  would  not 
treat  an  old  clerk  as  a  body  of  Christian 
people  will  sometimes  treat  a  poor  and 
worn-out  minister.  They  have  used  up 
his  youth  and  his  manhood  and  his 
enthusiasm  and  his  energy;  they  have 
had  the  bloom  of  his  mind  and  the 
harvest  of  his  soul.     For  them  he  lived 


84  Church    Folks 

and  thought;  for  them  in  the  days  of 
his  strength  he  exhausted  himself  every 
Sunday,  and  has  permanently  worn  out 
his  reserves  of  life.  All  that  they 
could  get  out  of  him  they  have  got,  and 
now,  after  watching  for  a  year  or  two, 
they  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
his  best  days  are  done,  and  they  make 
him  a  trumpery  presentation  and  bid 
him  go.  Then  they  go,  cap  in  hand, 
to  some  popular  young  minister  and 
entreat  his  favor,  declaring  that  their 
hearts  have  gone  out  to  him,  and  they 
believe  it  to  be  God's  will  that  he  should 
be  their  minister.  And  he,  in  his  turn, 
comes,  and  soon  is  to  be  heard  declaring 
that  there  never  was  such  a  loyal  people. 
Let  him  wait  a  little  while. 

Why   !N"ot    Organize   a   Eetieement 

Scheme  ? 

Would    it   not   be   better    that    each 
denomination  should  organize  a  retire- 


Church    Folks  85 

ment  scheme  upon  a  large  scale  with 
two  conditions  ?  The  first  would  be 
that  every  minister  should  be  removed 
from  active  work  at  the  age  of,  say, 
sixty-five,  and  afterward  he  might  give 
assistance  to  his  brethren  or  live  in 
quietness,  as  he  pleases.  The  second 
condition  would  be  that  he  receive  a 
retiring  allowance  of  not  less  than  half 
his  salary  up  to,  say,  $4000.  Should 
any  one  say  that  such  a  law  is  arbitrary, 
then  the  answer  is  that  surely  any 
minister  would  prefer  to  retire  by  law 
rather  than  by  force,  and  that  he  would 
be  in  good  company,  for  he  would  share 
the  lot  of  every  naval  and  military 
ofiicer  and  every  civil  servant  and  every 
ofiicer  of  any  great  corporation  through- 
out the  civilized  world. 

And  the  Church  must  not  fall  behind 
the  State.  Upon  the  personnel  of  her 
ministry  must  she  depend  for  her  visi- 
ble success,  and  her  aim  ought  to  be  that 
each  congregation  have   a  minister   in 


86  Church    Folks 

full  streng-th  of  mind  and  body,  and 
that  each  man,  after  he  has  exhausted 
himself  in  the  service  of  the  Church, 
should  be  kept  in  comfort  during  the 
remaining  years  of  his  life. 

x\ged  Ministers  in"  Active  Duty  ake 
A  Hindrance. 

Short  of  immorality  and  unbelief, 
one  cannot  imagine  a  greater  hindrance 
to  the  energy  of  the  Church  than  a  large 
proportion  of  aged  and  infirm  minis- 
ters in  active  duty.  For  this  will  mean 
obsolete  theology,  the  neglect  of  the 
young,  isolation  from  the  spirit  of  the 
day,  and  endless  wrangling.  [N^othing 
would  more  certainly  reinforce  the 
energy  of  the  Church  than  the  compul- 
sory retirement  upon  satisfactory  terms 
of  every  minister  above  the  age  of 
sixty-five.  For  this  would  mean  not 
only  a  reserve  of  good  men  upon  whom 
the  Church  could  depend  in  emergen- 


Church    Folks  87 

cies,    but    a    perpetual    tide    of    fresh 
thought. 

At  present,  congregations  have  a 
grievance  against  old  ministers  who 
think  they  are  young,  and  old  ministers 
have  a  grievance  against  congregations 
who  do  not  respect  age,  and  between  the 
two  arise  many  scandals  and  breaches 
of  the  peace.  When  the  Church  is  as 
well  managed  as  a  first-rate  business 
concern,  then  this  standing  feud  will  be 
healed,  and  no  one  will  be  so  much 
respected  and  loved  in  the  Christian 
Church  as  the  faithful  minister  who  has 
served  her  in  the  fulness  of  his  strength, 
and  now  in  the  days  of  his  well-earned 
rest  enriches  her  with  his  counsel. 


YI. 

The  Minister  and  the  Oegan. 

Songs  of  praise  are  a  part  of  public 
worship  witli  every  body  of  Christians 
— except  the  Society  of  Friends,  whom 
I  sometimes  regard  with  envy — and  I 
wish  it  to  be  imderstood  at  once  that 
I  am  not  prepared  to  suggest  their  aboli- 
tion. The  saints  of  the  Old  Testament 
had  a  musical  service  which  was  enough 
to  fill  the  heart  of  a  ritualist  with  de- 
spair, and  one  can  only  faintly  imagine 
the  kind  of  life  which  the  priest  lived 
who  was  responsible  for  the  Temple 
orchestra  and  had  to  deal  with  the  play- 
ers on  instruments.  The  ISTew  Testa- 
ment saints  began  without  an  orchestra, 
and    really    seemed   to    have    managed 


Church    Folks  89 

their  praise  for  some  time  on  common- 
sense  principles,  doing  the  best  they 
could  with  joyful  lips  and  singing 
bravely  in  black  prisons.  But,  like 
many  other  good  people,  they  did  not 
know  when  they  were  well  off,  and  by 
and  by  they  invented  the  melancholy 
chants  which  have  been  a  drawback 
to  Christians  of  all  generations. 

One  sometimes  wonders  how  the 
Friends  are  able  to  look  so  peaceful  and 
why  their  worship  is  so  delightful,  and 
I  am  tempted  to  think  it  is  because  they 
have  no  music  in  their  service.  Had  we 
none,  a  frequent  cause  of  trouble  would 
be  removed  from  many  a  congregation, 
and  the  minister  would  hardly  know 
what  to  do  with  his  time.  Yet  I  w^ish 
it  to  be  distinctly  understood  at  the 
same  time  that  I  regard  music  as  a 
necessary  part  of  divine  worship,  that 
organists  are  the  strength  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church,  and  that  every  person  who 
does  not  appreciate  to  the  full  his  choir- 


90  Church    Folks 

master  and  his  choir  is  an  ignorant  and 
ill-natured  Philistine. 


Why   Consideeation   is   Show:n'   the 
Organist. 

If  there  ever  is  any  trouble  in  the 
congregation  about  the  music,  and  if 
the  minister  ever  worries  himself,  let  it 
be  admitted  at  once  that  the  congrega- 
tion and  the  minister  are  alone  to  blame. 
But  there  are  difficulties,  and  they  may 
be  mentioned  in  a  spirit  of  becoming 
humility.  For  one  thing,  the  organist 
is  an  artist,  and  every  artist  has  a 
nature  of  special  refinement  which  can- 
not bear  the  rough-and-tumble  ordinary 
methods  of  life.  With  a  man  of  com- 
mon clay  you  deal  in  a  practical, 
straightforward,  and  even  brutal  fash- 
ion, arguing  with  him,  complaining  to 
him,  and  putting  him  right  when  he  is 
wrong.  But  no  man  must  handle 
precious  porcelain  in  such  fashion,  or 


Church    Folks  9 1 

the  artist  will  be  instantly  wounded 
and  will  resign  and  carry  his  pathetic 
story  to  every  quarter,  for  he  is  lifted 
above  criticism  and  public  opinion.  It 
is  impossible  to  teach  him  anything; 
it  is  an  insult  to  suppose  that  anything 
could  be  better;  it  is  best  to  accept 
what  he  gives,  and  to  recognize  that  it 
is  his  sphere  to  do  as  he  pleases  and  the 
sphere  of  every  other  person  to  declare 
that  what  he  does  is,  on  every  occasion, 
too  lovely  for  human  words,  and  that 
its  effect  is  almost  too  much  for  ex- 
hausted human  nature.  This  is  the 
tribute  which  the  congregation  ought  to 
pay  to  the  most  spiritual  of  artists,  the 
organist. 

Music   is   What   the    Congeegation" 

Wants. 

One  really  becomes  impatient  with 
the  minister,  who  ought  to  know  better 
and  yet  forgets  his  o^\ti  place,  owing  to 


92  Church    Folks 

a  want  of  artistic  appreciation  and  to 
an  overweening  sense  of  his  owtl  office. 
He  encroaches  on  the  organist  and  is 
justly  punished.  The  minister  ought 
to  remember — and  the  congregation 
may  assist  him  in  remembering — that 
his  work  is  subordinate  to  that  of  the 
artistj  and  that  the  rest  of  the  service  is 
simply  intended  to  be  a  support  and  en- 
vironment for  the  music.  What  the  con- 
gregation wants  to  hear  is,  not  his 
sermon,  although  I  have  never  kno\vn 
an  organist  object  to  the  sermon, ,  pro- 
vided the  preacher  did  not  occupy 
too  much  time.  Indeed,  many  organ- 
ists, I  have  reason  to  believe,  welcome 
the  sermon  as  a  rest  for  their  overstrung 
nerves.  What  the  congregation  really 
desires  to  hear  is  the  anthem,  and  the 
success  of  the  day  depends  upon  its 
performance.  When  a  minister  has 
laid  this  fact  to  heart,  and  taken  care 
that  the  people  who  have  been  raised 
into    a    Heaven    which    cannot    be    de- 


Church    Folks  93 

scribed  by  the  singing  are  not  unduly 
harassed  by  his  stupid  words,  he  has  at 
least  escaped  one  rock  of  offence. 

It  is  also  most  provoking  that  a 
minister  will  interfere  with  a  selection 
of  hymns,  and  still  harping  on  his  ser- 
mon, will  select  hymns  which  corre- 
spond with  its  theme.  Very  likely  the 
hymns  may  suit  the  text  perfectly  and 
may  be  very  popular  with  the  people, 
but  it  is  only  the  organist  who  knows 
whether  the  tunes  in  the  hymn-book  be 
high  or  low  class  music.  The  tunes 
may  be  so  popular  that  every  person  is 
thirsting  to  sing  them  with  all  his  heart 
and  at  the  pitch  of  his  voice,  but  an 
organist  will  be  simply  aghast  at  the 
thought  of  a  thousand  people  going  at 
large,  as  it  were,  in  his  province.  It  is 
a  privilege,  and  a  doubtful  one  at  the 
best,  that  they  should  be  allowed  to 
sing  at  all,  but  if  it  be  granted,  they 
must  mingle  trembling  with  their  joy. 


94  Church    Folks 

Organists    aee    Doing    Away    with 
Popular  Tunes. 

One  of  the  chief  efforts  of  a  really 
cultured  organist — there  are  exceptions 
— is  to  extirpate  popular  tunes  and  to 
replace  them  with  arrangements  which 
will  teach  the  congregation  to  keep 
silence.  A  case  came  to  my  notice  at 
one  time — and  when  I  hear  of  such 
things  I  do  not  know  how  my  brethren 
have  been  made — where  a  minister 
got  into  a  white  heat  with  an  organist 
because  that  eminent  person  had  in- 
vented a  tune  of  his  o^vn  for  ''  Rock 
of  Ages/'  which  was  a  dream  of 
beauty  and  reduced  the  congregation 
to  distant  admiration.  ITothing  is  more 
irritating  to  the  musical  temperament 
than  to  hear  the  people,  who  are  always 
inspired  with  an  insane  desire  to  make 
a  joyful  noise,  get  hold  of  a  really  fine 
tune  and  make  it  afterward  hateful  to 
delicate  ears,     l^othing  is  more  neces- 


Church    Folks  95 

sary  than  to  guard  the  congregational 
praise  from  these  follies  and  at  once  to 
remove  from  use  even  the  noblest  tune 
if  the  people  have  finally  taken  posses- 
sion of  it. 

Only  ceaseless  vigilance  on  the  part 
of  the  organist  can  secure  the  music 
from  the  incursion  of  the  congregation, 
for  they  are  so  determined  and  full 
of  mad  ambition  that  they  will  even  set 
themselves  to  master  strange  tunes,  and 
in  the  course  of  a  month  will  drown  the 
choir  with  music  which  was  intended  to 
be  beyond  their  reach;  and  the  wrong- 
headedness  with  which  a  minister  will 
support  the  congregation  in  this  raid 
upon  another  man's  kingdom  deserves 
all  the  trouble  which  falls  upon  his 
head. 

People    Keadily    Subscribe    to    ait 
Orgai^^  Fund. 

There  were  days — and  some  of  us 
who  are  no  longer  young  can  remember 


96  Church    Folks 

tliem — when  no  instrument  was  used  in 
public  worship,  and  when  every  aid  of 
this  description,  except  a  tuning-fork, 
was  judged  to  be  a  return  to  the  ele- 
ments of  the  Old  Testament.  But 
those  were  days  of  darkness.  To-day 
we  are  living  in  a  brighter  age.  A 
congregation  may  nowadays  give  so 
little  to  its  minister  that  his  wife  hardly 
knows  how  to  get  respectable  clothing 
for  the  family,  and  may  not  contribute 
anything  worth  mentioning  to  foreign 
missions  and  hospitals;  but  there  is  no 
self-respecting  congregation  which  will 
not  now  insist  on  possessing  an  organ. 
People  who  will  harden  their  hearts 
against  the  most  useful  charity  will  sub- 
scribe to  an  organ  fund,  and  what  can- 
not be  secured  by  subscription  will  be 
obtained  by  a  bazaar  with  gambling. 
When  the  organ  is  opened  by  a  distin- 
guished musician,  who  is  brought  from 
a  distance,  the  congregation  will  regard 
him  with  awe  as  an  almost  supernatural 


Church    Folks  97 

being,  and  will  count  the  event  of  more 
importance  than  a  revival  of  religion. 
They  will  be  utterly  overcome  by  the 
extent  and  variety  of  sound  which  he 
will  bring  from  the  instrument,  and 
when  he  uses  the  Vox  Humana  mothers 
of  families  can  only  look  at  one  another 
and  shake  their  heads  as  if  they  were 
hearing  sounds  from  the  other  world. 
When  he  subtly  suggests  thunder  by 
turning  on  the  full  force  of  the  organ, 
the  heads  of  the  congregation  will  con- 
gratulate themselves  by  signal,  because 
every  one  can  now  see  that  they  have 
received  full  value  for  their  money. 

Eccentricities    and   Demands    of   a 
]!^Ew  Organ. 

After  the  recital  is  over  the  great 
man  will  improvise  for  his  own  amuse- 
ment, and  when  it  is  possible  for  ordi- 
nary beings  to  speak  to  him,  a  little 
group  of  deferential  office  bearers  will 


98  Church    Folks 

ask  him  what  he  thinks  of  the  organ. 
He  may  give  a  patronizing  and  guarded 
approval,  but  he  will  be  careful  to  point 
out  the  number  of  stops  which  ought  to 
be  added  and  the  number  of  improve- 
ments in  action  which  are  absolutely 
necessary.  He  will,  in  fact,  suggest 
that  they  have  only  got  the  mere  foun- 
dation of  an  organ,  and  that  the  com- 
pletion will  take  many  a  year  and  be  an 
endless  opportunity  for  spending.  Per- 
haps he  may  be  good  enough  to  say  that 
some  $1500,  laid  out  in  one  or  two 
improvements  he  rapidly  sketches,  will 
make  the  instrument  respectable  for  an 
ordinary  organist;  but  he  may  leave 
them  under  the  impression  that  in  order 
to  make  it  suitable  for  a  master  like 
himself  the  congregation  would  require 
to  concentrate  its  financial  resources 
upon  the  organ  for  the  next  ten  years. 
If  the  congregation  has  been  at  all 
lifted  by  the  possession  of  its  new 
organ,   nothing  will  so  chasten  vanity 


Church    Folks  99 

and  self-conc^eit  as  the  visit  of  a  musi- 
cian who  has  taken  a  degree  and  has 
several  letters  after  his  name;  and  if 
any  person  depreciates  his  advice  as 
that  of  a  hypercritical  player,  and  sup- 
poses there  will  be  no  further  trouble 
about  that  organ,  his  innocence  is  de- 
lightful, and  shows  that  he  has  never 
had  anything  to  do  with  musical  instru- 
ments in  places  of  public  worship. 

Whatever  trials  the  congregation 
may  have  had  before  with  draughts  in 
the  building  or  questions  of  heating  or 
difficulties  in  finance  or  disturbances 
with  mutineers,  all  these  things  will  be 
less  than  nothing  compared  with  the 
eccentricities  and  demands  of  its  new 
organ.  If  it  be  blo^\Ti  by  hand,  then  it 
will  be  found  so  large  that  two  blowers 
are  required,  and  so  it  will  be  proposed 
to  have  a  hydraulic  engine.  This  engine 
will  not  ffo  two  Sundavs  out  of  four 
because  the  pressure  of  water  has  failed, 
and  then  some  members  of  the  congrega- 


loo  Church    Folks 

tion  will  have  to  work  tli§  bellows — if 
these  have  been  wisely  left  for  con- 
venience— and  before  they  have  finished 
their  work  deacons  of  a  stout  habit  of 
body  and  unaccustomed  to  manual  labor 
will  have  quite  a  new  feeling  about  that 
organ  and  will  confine  their  compli- 
ments to  the  Hebrew  language. 

WiiEiq"  Real  Tribulation  Begins. 

By  and  by  it  will  be  suggested  that 
the  organ  should  be  played  by  electric- 
ity ;  and  the  congregation,  but  especially 
the  minister  and  the  authorities  in 
charge  of  the  music,  will  now  begin  to 
know  what  real  tribulation  means.  The 
readjustment,  it  is  said,  will  take  six 
weeks,  and  be  of  a  comparatively  slight 
character;  it  will  really  take  about  a 
year,  with  some  months  thrown  in,  and 
during  that  time  the  congregation  will 
have  an  opportunity  of  inspecting  the 
different    parts    of    its    organ    in    the 


Church    Folks  loi 

church  hall  and  classrooms  and  passages 
and  outhouses,  where  it  will  be  lying 
in  mysterious  fragments. 

During  the  interim  the  members  of 
the  congregation  will  have  forgotten 
that  it  is  impossible  for  educated  people 
to  praise  God  without  instrumental 
music,  and  in  sheer  absence  of  mind 
they  will  be  singing  more  heartily  than 
they  have  done  for  the  last  ten  years. 
As  there  is  no  organ,  the  fancy  tunes 
will  have  to  be  given  up,  and  the  people 
will  be  allowed  to  worship  God  with  all 
their  might.  Ignorant  strangers  com- 
ing into  the  church,  and  not  remember- 
ing that  there  is  no  organ,  will  say  they 
never  heard  better  singing  in  their  lives, 
and  the  choir  will  be  insulted  with 
compliments  about  the  way  in  which 
they  are  leading  the  congregation,  while 
there  is  really  no  high-class  choir,  one 
or  two  excepted,  which  does  not  con- 
sider it  an  impertinence  that  the  con- 
gregation should  dare  to  follow  it,  and 


I02  Church    Folks 

which  does  not  want  to  go  its  own  way 
alone. 


Will  be  Six  Months  in^  the  Doctor's 
Hands. 

When  the  organ  is  finally  reformed 
and  the  day  comes  for  its  reopening, 
the  congregation  pretends  to  be  de- 
lighted, but  it  has  a  shrewd  idea  that 
the  days  of  its  liberty  are  over.  The 
members  of  the  congregation  may  have 
ventured  to  follow  afar  off  an  organ 
driven  by  a  water-engine  with  a  choir 
in  correspondence,  but  they  will  not 
have  the  audacity  to  intrude  upon  an 
organ  played  by  electricity  and  assisted 
by  a  still  more  elevated  choir.  If  the 
congregation,  however,  be  willing, 
through  a  sense  of  politeness,  to  keep 
silent,  the  electric  organ  will  have  no 
such  scruples,  for  its  extravagances  will 
be  endless.  If  it  consent  to  play  the 
first  voluntary,  it  will  finish  up  with  a 


Church    Folks  103 

long,  melodious  howl,  for  which  no  one 
can  hold  the  organist  responsible,  and 
it  will  give  melodious  toots  during  the 
prayers  v/hich  may  be  responses,  but 
have  not  been  arranged  for;  and  then 
in  the  middle  of  the  Te  Deum,  through 
some  fit  of  pure  cantankerousness,  it 
will  take  refuge  in  a  stubborn  silence. 
For  six  months  after  the  opening 
it  will  be  in  the  doctor's  hands,  and 
for  a  year  following  will  not  have  com- 
pletely shaken  off  the  habit  of  a  gay 
and  frivolous  youth,  and  the  congrega- 
tion will  be  torn  between  two  minds — 
secret  satisfaction  when  the  organ  is  not 
going  and  it  has  a  chance  of  singing 
free,  and  a  fierce  desire  to  cart  it  away 
and  have  it  thro^vn  into  the  nearest 
river. 

What  between  building  and  renewing 
the  organ  and  adding  stops  to  the 
organ  and  tuning  the  organ,  the  organ 
will  cost  every  year  in  interest  on 
capital  and  current  expenditure  enough 


1 04  Church    Folks 

money  to  have  kept  a  missionary  in 
foreign  parts  or  to  have  supported  a 
minister  in  a  poor  district  of  the  city; 
and  what  it  costs  in  anxiety  to  the 
organist,  who  is  apt  to  be  blamed  for 
everything,  and  who  has  generally  to 
spend  an  hour  in  its  recesses  with  his 
coat  off  before  service,  and  to  the  con- 
gregation in  chronic  irritation,  would, 
if  reduced  to  money  value  and  multi- 
plied by  the  number  of  organ-ridden 
churches,  clear  the  debt  off  every  for- 
eign mission  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  world. 

Choirs  are  Often  Accused  of 
quaekellin^g. 

My  owD.  experience  of  a  choir  and 
also  of  an  organist  has  been  altogether 
delightful,  which  is  one  of  my  singular 
mercies  of  which  I  am  not  worthy ;  but 
I  move  about  in  the  world,  and  I  have 
heard  things.  As  a  choir  consists,  it  is 
presumed,  of  a  number  of  select  persons, 


Church    Folks  105 

male  and  female,  who  have  correct  ears 
and  rich  voices  and  are  lovers  of  the 
most  delicate  and  spiritual  of  the  arts 
— the  most  refined  persons,  in  fact,  in 
a  congregation — one  would  take  for 
granted  that  the  whole  atmosphere  of 
a  choir  would  be  full  of  gentleness  and 
peace.  Rumors,  however,  reach  one's 
ears  that  the  power  of  quarrelling 
within  certain  church  choirs  can  only 
be  exceeded  by  the  high  spirit  of  a  body 
of  Irish  patriots,  and  that  there  is 
almost  nothing  so  trivial  and  invisible 
but  that  it  will  set  a  choir  by  the  ears. 
It  may  be  the  place  in  the  stalls  or  the 
singing  of  a  particular  p)art  or  a  correc- 
tion of  the  choir-master  or  a  word  of 
approval  to  another  chorister  or  a  re- 
mark dropped  by  one  of  the  choir — so 
tender  are  the  feelings  of  a  chorister — 
anything  or,  for  that  matter,  nothing, 
will  hurt.  He  will  sulk  or  make  un- 
pleasant remarks  or  resign  or  drive 
some   other   persons   out,    and   then   on 


1 06  Church    Folks 

some  great  occasion  all  the  members  of 
the  choir  will  resign  and  take  themselves 
so  seriously  that  the  event  will  be  con- 
sidered equal  in  interest  to  a  war. 
Upon  the  w^hole,  the  choir  rather  enjoys 
a  crisis  of  this  kind,  for  it  gives  stimulus 
to  the  artistic  temperament.  But  there 
are  some  who  do  not  enter  wholly  into 
the  enjoyment.  One  of  these  is  the 
wretched  minister,  who  finds  himself 
some  Sunday  in  the  position  of  being 
his  own  precentor,  and  who  has  to  be 
the  mediator  in  every  dispute;  and  the 
others  are  the  members  of  the  congrega- 
tion, who  are  apt  to  be  set  on  fire  by 
sparks  from  this  musical  conflagration, 
and  who  are  never  perfectly  certain 
whether  they  may  not  some  Sunday 
have  to  do  their  o^vn  singing. 

When  the   Old  Tunes  Weee  in 
Vogue. 

Times  there  are,  but  possibly  they  are 
foolish  moments,  when  one  remembers 


Church    Folks  1 07 

with  fond  and  wistful  regret  a  country 
kirk  where  a  precentor  raised  that 
time-honored  old  Scots  tune  '^  Martyr- 
dom'^ with  a  powerful  note,  and  a  con- 
gregation of  clear-voiced  and  big-lunged 
men  and  women  took  up  the  tune,  none 
keeping  silence,  and  sang  the  air  glori- 
ously, with  here  and  there  a  bass  and 
a  tenor,  even,  perhaps,  an  alto  thrown  in 
to  enrich  the  music.  And  there  are  other 
times  when  one  who  ought  to  have  known 
better  things  has  been  much  stirred  in 
his  heart  by  hearing  the  people  sing  at 
a  mission  service  one  of  those  tunes 
which  may  not  be  very  good  music,  and 
may  lend  themselves  to  loudness  of 
voice,  but  which  are  well  called  revival 
tunes  because  they  quicken  the  people's 
souls  and  give  expression  to  their  joy 
as  for  the  first  time  they  realize  that 
God  has  loved  them  and  has  given  for 
their  salvation  His  only  and  well- 
beloved  Son. 

It    is   well   that   the   praise   of   God 


io8  Church    Folks 

should  have  every  assistance  of  good 
taste  and  musical  art  in  subordination 
to  the  rights  of  the  people,  but  it  is  best 
that  men  should  sing  with  lips  which 
God  has  opened  and  from  hearts  which 
have  been  redeemed  at  Calvary. 


VII. 

The  Pew  and  the  Man  In  It. 

Vaeious  changes  have  been  wrought 
in  the  interior  of  the  church  since  the 
days  of  our  fathers,  but  no  change  is 
more  significant  than  the  opening  of 
the  pew,  which  in  its  way  has  been 
almost  as  great  a  change  as  the  lowering 
of  the  franchise  in  England  and  the 
abolition  of  political  disabilities.  One^s 
memory  recalls  the  good  old  days, 
which  we  call  good  largely  because  they 
were  old  and  are  now  hidden  in  a  mist 
of  reverent  affection.  One  sees  the  long 
row  of  family  pews,  each  carefully 
secluded  from  its  neighbor  and  shut  in 


iio  Church    Folks 

from  the  common  street  of  the  aisle  bj 
a  door  which  was  fastened  inside  by 
a  robust  hasp  or,  in  the  case  of  superior 
pews,  by  a  little  brass  bolt. 

When  the  Pew-Ownek  was  of 
Importance. 

If  the  tenant  of  the  pew  belonged 
to  the  upper  circle  of  the  district,  he 
covered  it  with  cloth — red  or  green — 
furnished  it  with  a  cushion  three  inches 
deep — which  contained  in  its  recesses 
the  dust  of  twenty-five  years — and  a  box 
for  Bibles  with  a  lock,  where  the  books 
of  worshij)  could  be  kept  in  security 
from  a  stranger's  hand.  There  were 
also  hassocks  of  a  substantial  character, 
not  for  purposes  of  kneeling — for  no 
one  in  such  a  pew  would  have  thought 
of  such  an  inconvenient  effort — but  that 
people  might  have  their  feet  comfort- 
ably propped.  And  there  were  even 
such  delicacies  of  comfort  as  an  elbow 


Church    Folks  1 1 1 

rest  in  the  pew,  so  that  one  fortunate 
sitter  might  be  able  to  hold  up  his  head 
with  his  hand  as  he  listened  to  the 
sermon. 

It  was  an  interesting  sight,  and  one 
cherishes  it  in  grateful  remembrance, 
when  the  local  dignitary  came  in  on 
Sunday  morning  to  take  possession  of 
his  mansion  and  to  share  in  divine 
worship.  The  pew-opener,  a  shrewd 
old  man  brought  up  in  the  atmos- 
phere of  kirks,  and  whose  very  face 
suggested  the  most  abstruse  doctrines, 
who  had  been  speaking  on  profes- 
sional subjects  with  the  deacons  of  the 
place,  and  had  allowed  fifty  of  the 
commonalty  to  pass  without  more  than 
a  faint  nod  and  a  reference  to  the 
weather — couched  in  subdued  tones — 
comes  forward  to  receive  the  chiefs  of 
the  synagogue  and  to  lead  them  to  their 
seats.  He  goes  first  down  the  aisle  with 
stately  tread,  looking  neither  to  the 
right  hand  nor  to  the  left,  followed  by 


1 1 2  Church    Folks 

Dives's  wife;  after  her  the  children; 
following  them  the  stranger  that  was 
within  their  gates,  and,  last  of  all,  con- 
tented and  superior,  Dives  himself. 

The  Pew  Door  was  Fastened  with 
A  Hasp. 

On  arrival  at  the  mansion-house  door 
the  pew-opener,  dexterously  unlocking 
the  door  with  one  hand  and  wheeling 
round  on  one  foot,  faces  the  procession 
behind  the  open  door  as  it  stretches 
half  way  across  the  aisle  and  stands 
there  after  a  little  bow,  looking  straight 
before  him,  deferential,  yet  not  uncon- 
scious of  his  place  in  the  hierarchy  of 
the  church,  and  the  members  of  the 
family  file  in  and  take  their  places  till 
at  last  there  is  hardly  room  for  the 
great  man  himself.  It  will  be  enough, 
however,  if  he  can  just  sit  down,  for 
in  that  case  the  influence  of  a  heavy 
body    will    gradually    make    room    for 


Church    Folks  1 1 3 

itself,  and  the  lighter  bodies  in  the  pew 
will  have  to  give  up  as  the  service  goes 
on  till  at  last  Dives  is  comfortably 
settled. 

Certainly  the  door  was  closed  with 
an  effort,  and  more  than  once  during 
the  service  you  heard  it  creak,  and  could 
not  help  hoping — but  that  was  in  the 
days  of  one's  boyhood — that  by  some 
fortunate  chance  the  door  would  one 
day  give  way,  and  Dives,  who  depended 
too  utterly  upon  it,  might  be  landed  in 
the  aisle.  The  hasp,  however,  not  to 
say  the  hinges  also,  was  strongly  made, 
and  the  pew-opener  saw  that  everything 
had  been  done  for  safety  as  well  as  dig- 
nity, and  then  he  processed  back  again 
to  the  door,  not  imconscious  that  he  had 
acquitted  himself  with  credit  and  that 
he  had  created  at  least  a  sensation  by 
his  ceremonious  disposal  of  the  rich 
man  and  his  family  in  their  pew. 


1 1 4  Church    Folks 

The  Pew-Holder  Made  Hii^iself 
Comfortable. 

Dives  unlocks  the  Bible  box  with 
a  key  which  is  upon  his  ring,  and 
distributes  the  books  as  if  he  were  pre- 
senting prizes  to  a  school,  while  the 
mother  of  the  family  gives  to  its  young- 
est members  such  provision  in  the  way 
of  sweets  as  Avill  sustain  exhausted 
nature  through  the  next  two  hours. 

There  were  cases  where  Dives  was 
unmarried  and  had  no  other  occupant 
for  his  mansion  save  his  honorable  self, 
but  he  was  conducted  in  all  the  same, 
and  set  himself  with  dignity  at  the  end 
of  the  lonely  pew.  And  if  you  suppose 
that  any  stranger  desiring  a  seat  would 
be  put  in  upon  Dives,  then  you  do  not 
imderstand  the  discretion  of  the  pew- 
opener;  and  if  you  imagine  that  a 
casual,  dropping  into  that  church, 
would  himself  try  to  break  in  upon  that 
majestic  vacancy,  your  imagination  is 


Church    Folks  115 

bold  enough,  but  it  has  not  yet  mastered 
the  expression  on  Dives's  face. 


People  Then^  Went  to  Their  Own 

ClIURCIIES. 

Strangers  did  not  in  former  days  ap- 
pear in  churches  unless  they  were  guests 
with  some  of  the  families,  because 
every  one  had  his  o^vn  church,  and  he 
went  to  it  through  rain  or  shine,  who- 
ever preached  and  whatever  was  going 
on  either  there  or  elsewhere.  People 
boasted  in  those  ancient  times  that  they 
never  wandered,  and  an  absolute  and 
unidentified  stranger  might  have  stag- 
gered the  pew-opener,  but  being  equal 
to  any  emergency,  he  would  have  con- 
ducted him  to  his  owm  pew,  which,  for 
purposes  of  convenience,  was  near  the 
pulpit,  so  that  the  wanderer  might  not 
interfere  with  any  other  person's  prop- 
erty and  might  be  under  surveillance. 
There   was   an   appearance   of   solidity 


1 1 6  Church    Folks 

when  the  church  was  full,  and  of 
respectability;  there  was  also  a  sugges- 
tion of  dignity  and  prosperity,  and  it  is 
right  to  add  some  flavor  also  of  family 
unity  and  homely  comfort  which  was 
most  agreeable  and  comforting  to  that 
old-time  congregation. 

Opei^-Handed    Hospitality    of    the 
Modern  Chuech. 

If  an  old-fashioned  person,  and  one, 
perhaps,  too  much  enamored  of  the  past, 
with  all  its  faults,  desires  to  receive 
a  shock,  he  has  only  to  visit  one  of  the 
modern  churches  of  the  extreme  type, 
which  are  usually  called  free  and  open, 
as  if  they  were  public  houses  or  pieces 
of  waste  ground  on  which  rubbish  is 
landed.  Openness  has  been  carried  to 
its  full  length,  for  not  only  are  there 
no  pew  doors  and  no  Bible  boxes  and  no 
cloth  for  your  back  and  no  cushion  into 
which  you  can  sink — there  may  be   a 


Church    Folks  117 

mat  and  there  may  be  hassocks — and 
hardly  any  division  between  one  pew 
and  another,  but  perhaps  there  are  no 
pews  at  all,  only  chairs,  and  you  stick 
your  hjann-book  into  a  rack  in  the  back 
of  your  front  neighbor's  chair,  who 
moves  when  you  do  so,  and  you  kneel 
against  that  chair — if  you  are  able  to 
kneel  at  all — and  then  you  push  your 
front  neighbor,  which  he  naturally 
resents.  Of  course,  there  is  no  pew- 
opener,  because  there  are  no  pew-doors 
to  open,  and  more  than  that,  there  is 
no  particular  place  for  you  to  sit,  be- 
cause you  can  sit  where  you  please  and 
take  a  different  seat  at  each  service  if 
you  wish. 

In  the  Church  of  To-day  All  Are 
Strangers. 

ISTo  pilgrim  nor  stranger  need  be 
abashed  in  the  modern  church,  for  there 
is  no  other  person  there  except  people 


1 1 8  Church  Folks 

like  himself;  all  are  strangers,  since 
the  J  have  no  right  to  an  inch  of  ground, 
and  all  are  pilgrims,  since  they  need 
not  sit  twice  in  the  same  place,  l^o  one 
can  complain  of  any  person's  selfish- 
ness, since  all  things  are  held  in  com- 
mon. 

If  Dives,  locked  within  his  door, 
suggested  exclusiveness,  it  may  be  said 
for  him  it  was  the  exclusiveness  of 
home,  and  within  the  pew  there  was 
a  little  community — the  original  com- 
munity of  life,  which  is  the  family. 
And  if  something  can  be  said  for  gen- 
eral free  and  openness  on  the  ground 
of  Christian  brotherhood  and  human 
equality,  one  still  clings  to  the  belief 
that  he  is  entitled  to  be  with  his  o^vn 
people — his  wife,  that  is  to  say,  and  his 
children — in  the  House  of  God,  and 
that  he  is  more  likely  to  worship  God 
with  reverence  when  he  has  some  slight 
privacy. 


Church    Folks  119 

The  Family  Existed  Before  the 
Pew. 

Possibly  a  visitor  may  feel  more  lib- 
erty in  a  free  and  open  church,  but,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  family  is  broken  up 
into  units  at  the  door,  and  no  mixed 
multitude  can  ever  make  so  strong  a 
congregation  or  one  that  appeals  so 
powerfully  to  the  eye  as  the  long  line 
of  pews,  let  us  say  without  doors  and 
furniture,  but  each  containing  a  family, 
with  the  mother  at  the  head  of  the  pew 
and  the  father  at  the  foot  and  the  young 
men  and  women  between.  For  the 
family  existed  before  the  church,  and 
if  the  church  is  not  to  be  a  mere  pos- 
session of  priests  or  a  lecture  hall,  the 
church  must  rest  on  the  family. 

The  pew  is  a  testimony  to  the  family, 
and  ought  to  be  maintained,  with  its 
doors  removed,  and  it  does  not  matter 
whether  a  man  pay  $50  a  year  for  his 
pew  or  fifty  cents.  The  church  authori- 
ties   should    see    that    the    householder 


1 20  Church    Folks 

has  his  pew,  with  room  enough  in  it  for 
himself,  his  wife,  and  the  children 
which  God  has  given  them.  There  is 
no  reason  in  the  world  why  the  rich 
man  should  not  pay  a  handsome  sum 
for  his  church  home.  And  some  of  us 
have  never  been  able  to  understand  why 
an  artisan  should  not  give  something 
for  his  church  home  also.  Surely  every 
man  wishes  to  do  what  is  right  in  the 
support  of  his  church. 

Sunday  Beggaes  an^d  Monday 
Beggars. 

Every  self-respecting  man  likes  to 
pay  for  his  home,  whether  it  be  large 
or  small,  and  it  touches  a  man's  honor 
to  live  in  a  workhouse,  where  he  pays 
no  rent  and  dej)ends  on  the  public. 
There  is  no  necessity  that  this  home 
feeling  and  this  just  independence 
should  be  denied  in  the  House  of  God, 
but  it  rather  seems  a  good  thing  that 
the  man  who  works  and  gives  to  pro- 


Church    Folks  i  2 1 

vide  a  house  where  he  and  his  children 
can  live  together  in  comfort  and  self- 
respect  six  days  of  the  week  should  do 
his  part  to  sustain  the  house  where  they 
worship  God  on  the  seventh  day. 

He  is  a  poor  creature  who  will  allow 
a  rich  man  to  pay  his  rent  for  him  on 
weekdays,  and  I  have  never  been  able 
to  see  where  there  is  any  difference 
between  being  a  beggar  on  Sunday  and 
a  beggar  on  Monday. 

PossEssio]^T  OF  A  Pew  is  a  Test  of 
Chaeacter. 

One,  however,  wishes  to  add,  and 
with  emphasis,  that  the  possession  of 
a  -pew  in  the  sense  in  which  a  man  pos- 
sesses his  house  is  a  test  of  character 
and  an  opportunity  for  hospitality. 
There  is  one  kind  of  man  who  not  only 
regrets  that  he  cannot  now  have  a  door 
on  his  pew,  but  who  would  have  it 
roofed  in  if  he  could,  who  will  resent 
the    introduction    of    a    stranger — al- 


122  Church    Folks 

though  there  be  plenty  of  room — as  a 
personal  affront,  and  will  order  strangers 
to  be  removed  if,  unhappily,  they  have 
been  placed  in  his  pew  by  mistake 
before  he  arrives.  If  he  only  occupy 
half  a  pew,  the  officers  of  the  church 
dare  not  put  in  another  set  of  tenants 
for  the  other  half,  because  he  will 
quarrel  with  them  as  to  which  half  they 
are  to  occupy,  as  to  who  is  to  go  in  first, 
as  to  a  hymn-book  that  has  wandered 
out  of  its  place,  or  about  a  friend  they 
brought  one  day  who  infringed  two 
inches  upon  his  share  of  the  pew.  It  is 
fair  to  say  that  the  miscreant  is  no 
worse  in  church  than  he  is  elsewhere, 
for  he  is  a  churl  everywhere — jealous, 
contentious,  inhospitable,  immanage- 
able. 

One  Mait  Whose  Pew  is  Open  and 
Free  to  Ale, 

But,  as  a  make-weight  to  this  abuse 
of  the  pews,  take  my  dear  old  friend 


Church    Folks  123 

Jeremiah  Goodheart.  He  is  now  alone 
with  his  gentle,  kindly  wife,  for  the 
children  have  made  homes  for  them- 
selves; but  he  .keeps  the  family  pew, 
and  will  on  no  account  give  np  a  sitting. 
It  sometimes  seems  to  the  managers  of 
the  church  that  Mr.  Goodheart  might 
take  a  homeless  family  in,  but  they  do 
not  press  the  matter  when  they  remem- 
ber how  long  he  and  his  have  had  that 
pew  to  themselves,  and  how  well  he  uses 
the  vacant  space.  He  has  a  number  of 
intimates  who  are  now  old  and  gray- 
headed,  and  who  come  from  time  to 
time  to  worship  w^ith  him  and  his  wife, 
and  feel  that  they  are  in  right  good 
company.  He  has  also  an  outer  circle 
of  friends  which  can  be  numbered  by 
the  hundred,  and  its  members  are  also 
in  the  habit  of  dropping  in  to  sit  in  that 
pew;  and  if  he  sees  a  stranger  at  the 
church  door,  Goodheart  must  needs  say 
a  word  to  him  of  welcome  and  good 
cheer.      If  the  stranger  happen  to  be 


1 24  Church    Folks 

a  young  man,  he  will  take  him  by  the 
arm  and  bring  him  down  to  his  pew, 
and  the  chances  are  he  will  ask  him 
home  to  dinner  and  will  tell  him  never 
to  sit  alone  in  his  lodgings,  but  to  count 
this  house  his  home. 

There  is  a  Welcome  Awaiting  Him 
IN  Heaven. 

And  Mistress  Goodheart  tells  her 
friends  with  much  satisfaction  the  size 
of  the  joint  they  have  on  Sundays, 
because,  although  their  own  sons  have 
gone,  they  never  sit  down  without  some 
young  men  as  guests,  and  Mr.  Good- 
heart  made  their  acquaintance  through 
the  pew.  If  some  family  in  the  church 
has  visitors,  and  extra  sittings  are 
needed,  why,  then,  the  children  of  the 
family  sit  in  the  Goodheart  pew  and 
are  received  with  open  arms.  Bless  his 
white  hair  and  genial  face,  he  never  is 
entirely   happy   and  never   enjoys   the 


Church    Folks  125 

sermon  unless  he  has  his  full  contingent 
of  guests ;  and  there  are  times  when  he 
brings  one  too  many,  and  then  the  other 
pew-holders  contend  as  to  who  shall 
have  him  for  their  guest. 

What  he  is  in  church  he  is  at  home, 
with  an  open  heart  and  an  open  hand, 
never  content  unless  his  friends  are 
coming  and  going,  never  angry  unless 
they  will  not  stay  and  have  a  meal  with 
him,  never  so  full  of  joy  as  when  he  is 
doing  a  good  turn  or  going  over  old  days 
with  those  to  whom  he  is  bound  by  a 
hundred  ties  of  kindly  words  and  deeds. 
As  he  has  dealt  with  all  men,  strangers 
and  friends  alike,  in  his  church  and  in 
his  house,  so  will  God  deal  by  him,  and 
for  him  we  may  feel  sure  there  will  be 
a  hospitable  welcome  waiting  where  the 
churches  of  earth  have  changed  into 
Our  Father's  House. 


VIII. 

The  Genteel  Tramps  in  Our 
Churches. 

It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  the 
use  of  money  is  a  test  of  character  and 
a  revelation  of  a  man's  nature.  There 
are  men  who  lose  money  by  their 
foolishness — Wastrels ;  there  are  men 
who  spend  it  on  their  vices — Prodigals ; 
there  are  men  who  hoard  it  with  jeal- 
ousy— Misers ;  there  are  men  who  lay  it 
out  in  well-doing — they  are  the  Wise 
Men. 

When  I  say  well-doing  I  am  not 
thinking  of  that  unreasoning  and  in- 
discriminate charity  Avhich,  whether  it 
take  the  form  of  alms  to  a  lazy  vaga- 
bond  or    a   larore   benefaction   for    the 


Church    Folks  1 27 

creation  of  paupers,  is  a  curse  and  not 
a  blessing,  a  sin  and  not  a  duty.  We 
are  not  to  read  in  a  meclianical  fashion 
the  advice  of  our  Lord  to  the  young 
ruler  to  sell  his  possessions  and  give  to 
the  poor,  for  though  that  might  have 
been  the  only  pledge  of  sincerity  he 
could  give  in  that  day,  it  would  be  a 
great  calamity  in  our  day. 

If  a  millionaire  were  to  realize  his 
estate  and  to  bestow  the  proceeds  upon 
that  residuum  of  our  population  who 
will  not  work  so  long  as  they  can  beg, 
he  would  do  the  greatest  injury  within 
his  power  to  his  fellow-men.  If  the 
same  person  used  his  means  to  give  the 
opportunity  of  honest  work,  whereby 
men  could  support  themselves  and  their 
families,  he  would  confer  one  of  the 
greatest  blessings  in  his  power  upon  his 
fellow-men. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  case  in 
ancient  times,  there  can  be  no  question 
that  in  our  day  the  man  who  establishes 


128  Church    Folks 

a  manufactory  in  a  small  to^vn  and  pays 
fair  wages  does  ten  times  more  good 
than  he  who  would  use  his  wealth  to 
found  an  almshouse. 

Head  as  Well  as  Heaet  is  I^eeded 
IN  Giving. 

When  a  man's  family  claims  have 
been  properly  met,  and  his  business 
enterprises  have  been  soundly  sustained, 
perhaps  the  best  two  things  a  man  can 
do  with  his  superfluous  wealth  is  to  use 
it  to  send  the  .knowledge  of  God  to  those 
who  sit  in  darkness,  or  to  bestow  the 
priceless  gift  of  education  upon  those 
who  hunger  and  thirst  for  knowledge. 
It  is  unfortunate  that  many  persons 
have  not  learned  to  give,  but  it  is  also 
unfortunate  that  many  people  do  not 
know  where  to  give.  The  head  as  well 
as  the  heart  is  needed  in  giving,  and 
giving  is  a  training  for  one's  brain  as 
well  as  for  one's  feelings. 


Church    Folks  129 

There  are  congregations  which  bring 
no  intelligence  to  their  giving,  and  for 
any  good  it  does  half  their  liberality 
had  better  have  been  flung  into  the  sea. 
They  keep  up  mission-houses  in  poor 
parts  of  the  city,  which  are  simply  insti- 
tutions for  the  propagation  of  pauper- 
ism, and  the  congregations  they  gather 
are  largely  made  up  of  people  who 
object  to  work  between  meals.  Reports 
are  published  every  year  showing  the 
number  present  at  the  services  and  con- 
taining harrowing  accounts  of  the 
misery  which  has  been  relieved. 


CONGKEGATIONS     AEE     EaSY     TO     FiND. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  if  you  give  an 
able  organizer  $3000  a  year  to  spend 
in  a  downtoT\Ti  district,  he  will  secure 
you  at  any  time  a  congregation  of  about 
five  hundred  people;  and  if  the  mem- 
bers of  the  mother  church  wish  to  go 
down  and  be  present  at  an  enthusiastic 


130 


Church    Folks 


meeting,  then  all  that  has  to  be  done 
is  for  one  of  its  wealthy  members  to 
play  the  host  on  that  evening.  The 
gathering,  both  in  numbers  and  en- 
thusiasm, will  leave  nothing  to  be 
desired,  and  the  good  people  of  the  rich 
church  will  go  home  feeling  that  they 
have  a  flourishing  mission  and  are 
doing  an  immense  deal  of  good,  while 
the  chances  are  that  they  have  really  no 
mission  in  the  religious  sense  of  the 
word,  and  that  their  money  has  done 
incalculable  mischief. 

Upon  the  whole,  the  mission  churches 
maintained  on  a  principle  of  lavish 
expenditure  by  rich  congregations  corre- 
spond exactly  in  their  moral  effect  to 
the  almshouses  founded  by  people  who 
have  more  money  than  they  know  what 
to  do  with  and  not  enough  brains  to 
know  how  to  use  it. 

Had  the  money  squandered  on  soup 
kitchens  and  clothing  clubs  and  such 
like    schemes    for   the   maintenance   of 


Church    Folks  131 

mendicants  and  their  families  been 
employed  for  the  erection  of  a  proper 
church,  where  honest  people  among  the 
poor  might  worship  God  with  self- 
respect,  or  of  sanitary  property,  where 
working  people  might  live  in  decency 
at  moderate  rents,  or  for  the  creation 
of  a  scholarship  by  which  lads  poor  in 
money  but  rich  in  brains  could  obtain 
the  higher  education,  then  social  re- 
formers would  have  cause  to  bless  the 
Church,  and  the  Church  would  be  a 
means  of  far  greater  good  in  the  com- 
munity. 

Wheit    the    Minister    Has    a    Soft 
Heart. 

A  West  End  congregation  does  not, 
however,  need  to  go  to  the  East  End 
to  do  mischief,  for  it  can  create,  if  it 
so  please,  a  nursery  of  genteel  tramps 
within  its  own  borders.  When  a  minis- 
ter and  his  people  have  the  reputation 


132  Church    Folks 

of  a  soft  heart,  and  by  that  is  often 
meant  a  soft  head,  the  news  spreads  far 
and  wide,  and  there  is  an  immediate 
accession  to  the  number  of  worshippers. 
Tradespeople  of  the  lower  class  who 
wish  to  push  their  business  and  do  not 
feel  sufficiently  confident  about  the  goods 
they  sell;  young  men  who  have  lost 
their  situations  because  they  wouldn't 
do  their  -work ;  families  of  women  who 
would  consider  it  beneath  them  to  do 
anything  for  their  own  living  and  are 
adepts  in  what  may  be  called  genteel 
raiding;  incapable  men  of  business 
whom  no  bank  would  trust  with  $50, 
but  who  hope  to  get  $1000  by  quoting 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount — all  these 
gather  and  sit  down  within  the  shelter- 
ing walls  of  this  Christian  asylum. 

They  All  Come  to  Benefit  Them- 
Selves  Financially. 

They    all    come,    according   to    their 
own  story,  for  the  most  excellent  and 


Church    Folks  133 

affecting  reasons:  because  their  last 
congregation  was  cold  and  thej  wished 
to  live  in  a  warmer  atmosphere ;  because 
they  have  received  benefit  from  the 
minister's  preaching  and  feel  it  to  be 
a  privilege  to  be  under  his  care ;  because 
thej  desire  to  do  some  good  work,  and 
have  heard  from  afar  of  the  zeal '  of 
this  congregation;  but  chiefly  on  account 
of  the  spirituality,  both  of  minister  and 
people,  which  has  been  as  a  loadstone 
drawing  these  simple  souls  to  their 
natural  home.  Their  real  reason,  to 
put  it  in  plain  English,  is  that  they  do 
not  care  to  work  for  their  livelihood  as 
honest  folk  do,  and  that  they  propose 
to  cast  themselves  on  congregational 
charity.  They  have  come  not  because 
they  care  one  cent  what  the  minister 
preaches  nor  what  he  is,  provided  only 
he  has  no  discernment,  but  simply  and 
solely  to  beg.  They  are  adepts  in  their 
own  department,  and  have  brought  con- 
gregational  begging   to   the   height   of 


134  Church    Folks 

a  fine  art.  They  do  not  borrow  as  soon 
as  tliej  arrive,  and  the  more  skilful 
members  of  the  craft  will  never  mention 
money  at  all.  Their  desire,  as  they 
explain  to  the  minister  in  his  study 
with  a  diffidence  and  a  delicacy  which 
impress  him  very  much  if  he  be  a  man 
of  simple  piety,  is  simply  to  have  a 
corner  in  his  church  where  they  can  sit 
and  drink  in  the  pure  milk  of  the 
Word;  and  their  only  trouble  is  that 
for  the  first  six  months  they  will  not 
be  able  to  pay  any  seat  rent  nor  to  give 
any  contribution  to  the  missionary 
funds. 

TiiEY  Talk  of  the  Days  Whett  They 
Were  Better  Off. 

There  were  days  when  they  were 
better  off,  they  explain,  and  then  the 
delight  of  their  life  was  liberality. 
There  has  been  a  great  family  reverse, 
and  vague  allusions  are  made  to  a  large 
sum  lost  either  through  the  misconduct 


Church    Folks  135 

of  a  relative  or  through  the  faihire  of 
a  bank,  and  now  they  are  compelled  to 
live  most  economically.  Their  struggle, 
the  minister  is  allowed  to  understand, 
is  very  keen;  but  it  was  not  to  talk 
about  such  things  again  to  him,  but  only 
to  assure  him  of  the  blessing  he  had 
been  to  them,  and  their  anxiety  to  be 
useful  members  in  his  church.  If  they 
cannot  give,  they  are  at  least  willing  to 
work,  and  generally  by  an  accident 
choose  a  department  of  Christian  ser- 
vice whose  head  is  rich  in  this  world's 
goods  and  known  to  be  generous. 

Under  the  eye  of  such  a  chief  there 
is  no  end  to  the  activity  of  our  mendi- 
cant friends.  They  will  offer  to  do 
anything.  They  will  suggest  new 
schemes  of  philanthropy;  they  will 
drive  the  old  workers  crazy  by  their 
fussing;  and  they  will  go  some  night, 
at  an  inconvenient  hour,  with  half  a 
dollar,  which,  it  oozes  out,  they  have 
saved  for  a  good  cause.     As  they  are 


136  Church    Folks 

not  able  to  give  to  the  clmrch  funds, 
they  make  with  their  own  hands  some 
preposterous  offertory  bags,  which  they 
present  formally  to  the  office  bearers  of 
the  church,  and  which  can  never  be 
shown. 

How  They  Disteibtjte  Their 
Teifling  Gifts. 

And  as  they  have  no  other  means  of 
proving  their  gratitude  to  the  minister, 
they  call  one  evening,  the  man  and  his 
wife  together,  who  are  colleagues  in 
mendicancy,  and  ask  him  to  accept 
a  huge  muffler,  which  will  protect  his 
throat  from  the  winter  cold  amid  his 
innumerable  labors,  and  whose  colors 
and  construction,  if  he  wore  the  thing, 
would  render  him  liable  to  deposition 
from  the  ministry.  Leading  members 
of  the  congregation  are  faithfully  re- 
membered upon  their  birthdays  and  at 
Christmas  with  cards  emblazoned  with 
pious  designs  and  observations;  and  if 


Church    Folks  137 

a  child  be  stricken  with  an  anxious  and 
painful  complaint  like  chicken-pox,  the 
inquiries  of  our  mendicant  friends  are 
regular  and  touching.  They  do  not  like 
to  trouble  the  mother,  but  thej  have 
conceived  such  an  affection  for  the  little 
darling,  whom  they  have  watched  in 
church,  that  they  couldn't  rest  without 
learning  whether  the  sweet  pet  had 
passed  a  quiet  day.  They  do  not  wish 
to  be  forward,  and  they  do  not  forget 
their  changed  circumstances,  but  they 
hope  it  will  not  be  considered  an  offence 
to  have  brought  just  a  trifle  for  the 
angel  in  her  sickness,  and  they  ask  the 
mother  to  convey  an  unholy-looking 
piece  of  candy  to  the  little  lamb.  There 
are  mothers  and  mothers,  but  the  chances 
are  that  the  mother  will  be  considerably 
moved  and,  on  the  whole,  well  pleased 
by  this  interest  in  her  child,  and  al- 
though she  will  put  the  gift  promptly 
in  the  fire,  she  will  not  forget  the  givers 
at  Christmas  time. 


138  Church    Folks 

When-  They  Have  Spui^  Their  Web 
Successfully. 

When  the  spiders  have  spun  their 
web  of  delicate  filaments,  and  have 
stretched  it  from  corner  to  corner  of 
the  church,  it  is  amazing  hoAV  many 
flies,  not  all  of  them  simple,  they  have 
caught  and  how  much  spoil  they  have 
obtained.  The  wardrobes  of  the  church, 
both  of  men  and  women,  are  at  their 
disposal,  and  every  month  you  are 
reminded  of  some  old  friend  when  you 
see  our  mendicant,  and  it  is  quite  inter- 
esting to  trace  the  "  go-to-meeting" 
clothes  of  the  congregation  reappearing 
in  new  circumstances.  Their  house 
rent  is  paid,  in  turn,  by  a  set  of  good 
Samaritans,  each  of  whom  believes  that 
he  is  the  only  one  who  has  ever  been 
allowed  to  do  this  kindness,  and  who 
does  it  under  promise  of  secrecy,  lest 
shrinking  natures,  poor  but  proud, 
should  be  hurt,   and  that  self-respect. 


Church    Folks  139 

which  is  now,  as  they  explain,  their 
only  possession,  should  be  destroyed. 
Some  kindly  doctor  in  the  district  gives 
his  attendance,  as  is  usual  with  those 
men,  without  money  and  without  price. 
Medical  comfort  in  the  shape  of  cor- 
dials, jellies,  fruit,  delicate  food,  pour 
into  the  house  with  such  a  constant 
stream  that  it  is  not  wonderful  that 
dear  little  Alice  does  not  recover 
quickly  and  that  the  assistance  of  the 
family  has  to  be  called  in  to  use  up  the 
dainties. 

Later,  little  Alice,  who  has  been 
taken  around,  elaborately  wrapped  up 
and  looking  most  piteous,  to  thank  her 
benefactors  in  person,  and  who  comes 
on  most  awkward  occasions,  has  to  be 
sent,  through  sheer  pity,  for  a  month 
into  the  country,  and  the  fond  family 
who  cannot  bear  to  live  without  little 
Alice — they  never  can  quite  shake  off 
the  habits  of  past  prosperity — have  to 
accompany  the  convalescent. 


140  Church    Folks 

BoKEowiNG  Feom  Every  One  They 
Meet. 

Time  would  fail  me  to  tell  of  the 
loans  wliicli  they  obtain  from  almost 
everybody,  rich  and  poor.  Which  are 
asked  in  every  case  in  circumstances  of 
the  last  extremity  and  with  a  perfect 
agony  of  shame;  which  is  the  first 
money  ever  borrowed  by  the  family, 
and  is  to  be  repaid  in  the  course  of 
fourteen  days  exactly;  for  which  secu- 
rity is  offered  in  the  shape  of  an 
ancient  gold  brooch — the  last  heirloom 
of  the  family.  It  is  only  after  the 
long  raid  has  ended,  and  the  mendi- 
cants have  departed  to  another  West 
End  church  at  a  safe  distance,  that  peo- 
ple begin  to  compare  notes  and  add  up 
accounts,  when  it  is  discovered  that  at 
the  lowest  estimate  the  family  have 
lived  ujDon  the  congregation  at  the  rate 
of  $1000  a  year. 

This    calculation    is,    of    course,    ex- 


Church    Folks  141 

elusive  of  what  they  earn  for  them- 
selves; but,  as  a  rule,  this  would  not 
swell  the  balance.  If  any  form  of  work 
be  suggested  to  the  female  mendicant 
in  reduced  circumstances,  she  struggles 
with  her  emotions,  but  cannot  conceal 
the  fact  that  she  is  very  much  hurt.  It 
may  be  foolish,  she  explains  amid  her 
tears,  but  her  poor  father,  who  has 
generally  been  in  the  army,  had  often 
said  that  no  daughter  of  his  name 
should  ever  come  to  work,  and  she  feels 
it  due  to  his  memory  to  sustain  this 
noble  attitude,  and  one  is  so  muchi 
ashamed  at  his  brutal  suggestion  that 
he  willingly  pays  an  indemnity. 

When  the  Mendicant  is  a  Trades- 
man. 

It  is  of  no  use  attempting  to  get  a 
situation  for  a  young  fellow  of  this 
tribe,  since  either  the  place  you  get  for 
him  does  not  suit  his  peculiar  ability,  or 


142  Church    Folks 

after  he  has  been  there  for  three  days 
there  is  a  difference  between  him  and 
the  manager  of  the  office,  which  shows 
that  the  manager  has  not  been  accus- 
tomed to  deal  with  gentlemen;  and,  of 
course,  as  the  young  man's  mother  tells 
you,  her  son  could  not  forget  the  history 
of  the  family. 

If  the  mendicant  be  a  tradesman, 
and  you  send  him  customers,  for  which, 
indeed,  he  has  been  touting,  the  things 
are  so  badly  made  that  no  one  can  wear 
them,  and  the  price  is  so  high  that  no 
one  is  inclined  to  pay  it;  and  then 
the  tradesman  generally  belongs  to  that 
high  and  mighty  class  which  will  not 
condescend  to  make  anything  except  in 
the  good  old-fashioned  way;  and  espe- 
cially will  not,  even  at  the  point  of 
starvation,  lower  the  price.  As  a  matter 
of  fact — naked  fact — this  high-spirited 
tradesman  does  not  want  to  work  so 
long  as  silly  people  will  support  him. 


Church    Folks  143 

When  the  Minister's  Eyes  are 
Opened. 

By  and  by  even  the  kindliest  of 
ministers,  with  the  growth  of  intelli- 
gence in  the  Christian  church,  will  see 
through  this  class,  and  will  promptly 
subject  them  to  a  shrewd  labor  test, 
declining  to  mix  up  together  piety  and 
beggary,  and  refusing  to  believe  that 
anybody  has  ever  got  any  good  from 
his  ministry  who  will  not  work  for  his 
living.  One  also  expects  that  a  con- 
gregation of  Christian  people,  the  most 
credulous  body  on  earth,  will  pluck  up 
courage  and  at  the  same  time  rally  their 
common-sense  and  refuse  to  make  the 
Christian  society  a  dumping-ground  for 
genteel  tramps,  and  the  ^'  Weary  Will- 
iams" of  religion  will  have  to  find  out 
some  new  way  of  evading  the  law  that 
if  a  man  will  not  work,  neither  shall 
he  eat. 


1 44  Church    Folks 

And  the  money  wliicli  has  been  saved 
from  these  parasites  might  go  to  swell 
the  fund  for  the  comfortable  support 
of  retired  ministers. 


IX. 

Is  THE  Minister  an  Idler  ? 

'No  man  has  more  reason  to  be  grate- 
ful to  his  public  than  a  minister,  for  I 
know  no  servant  who  is  more  .kindly 
treated.  While  there  are,  no  doubt,  in 
so  large  a  body  as  the  Christian  Church 
censorious  hearers  and  ill-mannered 
congregations,  just  as  there  are  lazy  and 
cantankerous  ministers,  yet  the  average 
congregation  is  charitable  in  its  judg- 
ment of  its  minister,  patient  under  his 
failings,  keenly  appreciative  of  any 
good  work  he  does,  and  most  responsive 
to  all  his  good  offices.  There  are  not 
many   substantial   complaints   which   a 


146  Church    Folks 

sane-minded  and  good-tempered  minis- 
ter can  bring  against  the  average  con- 
gregation, but  lie  has  sometimes  a 
grudge  against  his  friends  which  he 
does  not  express,  but  which  often 
rankles  in  his  heart.  It  is  not  anything 
they  say  nor  anything  they  do;  it  is 
the  quiet  and  perhaps  unconscious 
assumption  on  their  part  that  he  has 
not  enough  work  to  do  or  that  he  has 
a  considerable  quantity  of  time  at  his 
disposal. 

Were  he  to  depend  upon  their  words, 
then  thig  suspicion  would  never  cross 
his  mind,  because  they  have  a  trick, 
and  a  kindly  one,  of  saying  to  him  on 
Monday  that  he  must  be  very  tired 
after  preaching  two  such  wonderful 
sermons,  and  he,  being  only  human,  is 
apt  then  to  imagine  that  he  is  exhausted 
after  such  an  intellectual  output.  At 
other  times  they  remonstrate  with  him 
in  a  casual  way,  after  the  talk  about 
the  weather,  because  he  has  been  over- 


Church    Folks  147 

working,  and  tell  him  that  they  cannot 
imagine  how  he  is  able  to  do  so  much. 
All  this  is  friendly  and  comforting,  and 
the  minister  has  an  agreeable  sense 
that  his  work  is  appreciated,  and  that 
he  is  one  of  the  austere  toilers  of  the 
world. 

The   Miis^istee's    Time   is   Not   Con- 
sidered. 

As  he  grows  older,  however,  and 
begins  to  attach  more  importance  to  the 
attitude  of  a  person's  mind  than  the 
irresponsible  words  which  fall  from  his 
lips,  he  has  an  uneasy  sense  that  people 
are  not  so  very  much  impressed  by  his 
exacting  labors  and  his  crowded  hours. 
Delightful  ladies,  and  all  ladies  are 
delightful,  invite  him  to  afternoon  tea 
and  such  like  functions,  where  he  will 
be  the  only  gentleman  present;  or  if 
there  be  another,  he  will  be  an  elderly 
man,  long  retired  from  business. 


148  Church    Folks 

While  the  minister  thanks  the  lady 
for  her  thought  of  him,  it  comes  to  his 
mind  that  her  own  husband  will  not  be 
at  the  pleasant  little  party  nor  her  own 
sons,  because  they  are  too  busy,  and  she 
would  not  dream  of  asking  a  barrister 
or  a  merchant  or  a  doctor  or  a  journal- 
ist, unless  it  were  some  great  affair  to 
which  all  society  was  going.  It  would 
seem  to  her  absurd  to  take  a  busy  man 
away  from  his  work,  even  to  spend  an 
hour  with  her  and  other  equally  charm- 
ing women.  The  other  men  would  not 
come  because  they  could  not.  They 
must  do  their  work.  The  minister  is 
invited  because,  as  his  hostess  assumes, 
he  has  no  work  to  prevent  his  coming. 
And  she  would  be  apt  to  consider  him 
somewhat  less  than  courteous,  and  cer- 
tainly not  obliging,  if  he  refused;  and 
if  he  did  so  on  account  of  his  time 
being  occupied,  even  her  charity  might 
fail  her,  and  she  might  allow  herself  to 
think  that  he  had  some  other  reason. 


Church    Folks  149 

Was  he  not  sitting  in  his  study  ?  Why 
might  he  not  as  well  be  in  her  house  ? 
And  she  would  never  understand  it 
was  his  only  chance  that  afternoon  of 
mastering  a  necessary  book.  Had  he 
not  passed  her  house  half  an  hour 
before,  and  if  he  could  go  out  for 
a  walk,  why  might  he  not  have  spent 
the  time  in  her  garden,  and  he  cannot 
explain  to  her  that  he  was  going  to 
visit  a  case  of  sickness. 

Secretaries  of  philanthropic  societies 
will  ask  him  to  go  do^vn  from  a  distant 
suburb  to  the  heart  of  the  city,  and 
second  a  resolution  at  a  public  meeting 
of  eight  elderly  gentlemen  and  ceventy- 
seven  females  of  imcertain  age,  to- 
gether with  four  genteel  mendicants 
who  have  come  to  see  whether  they  can 
borrow  five  shillings  from  some  good 
Samaritan. 


150  Church    Folks 

Faddists  of  All  Sokts  Hakass  the 

MiNISTEE. 

It  was  an  excellent  society,  and  it 
was  necessary  its  committee  should  be 
re-elected,  and  the  minister  said  so  at 
the  length  of  ten  minutes,  but  the  bitter 
question  was  in  his  heart  as  he  went 
home,  tired  and  fretted:  Was  this  the 
best  use  he  could  make  of  his  time, 
and  would  the  secretary,  indefatigable 
though  he  was  and  full  of  push,  have 
asked  a  business  man — that  is,  a  man 
really  busy — to  have  left  his  office  in 
the  heat  of  the  work  and  spend  three 
hours  of  his  time  in  going  out  to  a 
suburb  and  saying  what  was  of  no  im- 
portance to  people  on  whom  it  would 
have  no  special  effect?  The  minister 
knows,  and  the  secretary  knows,  and 
everybody  knows  that  the  business  man 
would  have  said  no  in  the  shortest  form 
of  words,  and  no  person  would  have 
been  indignant  that  he  should  say  so, 


Church    Folks  151 

and  every  person  would  have  held  him 
to  be  a  foolish  man  if  he  had  gone. 

Such  an  expenditure  of  time  is 
impossible  except  for  superannuated 
gentlemen  and  for  ministers.  And,  of 
course,  if  ministers  are  simply  fiddling 
away  their  time  in  the  house  reading 
magazines  or  looking  out  at  the  win- 
dows, or  if  they  are  only  gadding 
around  their  districts  paying  compli- 
mentary calls  and  talking  about  the 
weather,  it  would  be  a  good  thing,  if 
only  for  a  change,  that  they  should 
spend  an  afternoon  going  and  coming 
to  a  meeting  and  convincing  the  audi- 
ence that  they  ought  to  re-elect  the 
committee. 

Faddists  of  every  description  drop 
into  a  minister's  study,  preferring  the 
forenoon,  because  they  are  sure  to  find 
him  at  home,  and  explain  to  him  at 
enormous  length  that  we  are  the  descend- 
ants of  the  lost  ten  tribes;  that  moral 
evils  would  be  largely  done  away  with 


152  Church    Folks 

if  we  ate  carrots  instead  of  meat;  that 
the  work  carried  on  by  some  person 
whose  name  the  minister  can't  pro- 
nounce, at  a  place  in  Asia  Minor  of 
which  he  never  heard,  and  on  the  sole 
responsibility  of  the  man  who  draws 
the  salary  in  Asia  Minor,  is  the  most 
important  in  the  range  of  foreign  mis- 
sions. Were  any  one  of  these  voluble 
people,  and  they  are  only  three  out  of  a 
hundred,  each  with  a  bee  in  his  bonnet, 
to  visit  a  merchant's  office,  he  would  not 
likely  be  allowed  into  the  principal's 
room,  and  if  he  were,  he  would  soon 
again  be  in  the  outer  office. 

The  effrontery  of  a  faddist  is  amaz- 
ing, but  it  has  limits ;  and  after  a  little 
experience  the  faddist  leaves  the  mer- 
chant alone,  and,  as  a  rule,  he  does  not 
even  attempt  the  doctor,  but  he  settles 
down  as  by  an  instinct  and  with  a  feel- 
ing of  being  at  home  in  the  minister's 
study.  If  the  minister  be  a  really  good 
man,  the  faddist  enjoys  himself  very 


Church    Folks  153 

much,  for  he  has  got  a  helpless  victim ; 
but  if  the  minister  be  an  imperfectly 
sanctified  man,  then  the  faddist  goes  to 
the  door  almost  as  quickly  as  from  the 
merchant's  room,  but  the  minister 
knows  that  his  life  is  in  the  power  of 
the  faddist's  tongue. 

MiNisTEKs  Have  Little  Time  for 
Themselves. 

What  annoys  the  minister,  and  all 
the  more  so  that  he  cannot  express  his 
annoyance,  is  that  all  those  people 
believe  that  he  does  not  really  know 
what  to  do  with  his  time,  and  that  it  is 
at  every  person's  disposal.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  conscientious  minister  of 
a  city  church  works  harder  than  any 
person  in  the  community,  except  a 
doctor  in  general  practice,  a  journalist 
on  a  daily  paper,  and  a  seamstress 
under  the  sweater's  lash.  He  may  sit 
as  late  as  he  please  at  night — and, 
indeed,  must  sit  till,  say,  midnight  at 


154  Church    Folks 

least — in  order  to  keep  up  with  his 
reading,  but  he  must  be  up  early  in  the 
morning,  because  a  business  man  will 
come  in  to  see  him  before  nine  o'clock, 
and  by  that  time  he  must  have  opened 
his  first  mail,  which  will  amount  to 
about  twelve  letters,  and  if  he  thinks 
it  necessary — and  in  a  city  it  is  neces- 
sary— must  have  gathered  at  a  glance 
what  happened  yesterday  in  his  com- 
munity and  in  the  world.  From  nine 
to  one  he  is  at  work  preparing  for  the 
pulpit,  for  week-night  services,  for 
classes,  and  for  miscellaneous  church 
and  public  work,  as  hard  as  he  can,  and 
the  hour  which  he  loses  through  callers 
has  to  be  made  up  with  interest  late  at 
night.  He  allows  himself  some  food 
at  one  o'clock,  although  very  often  he 
has  to  take  it  cold,  because  some  in- 
genious beggar  knows  that  is  the  best 
time  to  find  him,  and  in  the  height  of 
the  season  he  grudges  the  loss  of  his 
meal-time,  and  longs  for  the  day  when 


Church    Folks  155 

American  invention,  fertile  in  ideas 
and  parsimonious  of  time,  will  invent 
a  liquid  food  which  he  can  take  in  from 
a  pipe  while  he  is  studying. 

Wheit  He  Ketuens  Home  After  a 
Busy  Day. 

If  he  has  not  promised  to  second  the 
appointment  of  a  committee  .of  forty 
members  to  manage  a  home  for  twenty 
girls,  then  he  spends  the  time  from 
about  two  to  six  visiting  people  who  are 
sick,  or  who  have  lost  friends,  or  who  are 
in  religious  anxiety,  or  who  are  suffering 
w^orldly  loss,  or  who  have  just  come  to 
his  church,  or  who  are  just  leaving  his 
church,  or  whom  he  wishes  to  enlist 
for  work,  or  whom  he  has  not  seen  for 
some  time  and  desires  to  keep  in  touch 
with.  He  returns  home  in  the  evening, 
not  because  his  work  is  done,  because 
this  kind  of  work  is  never  done  and 
never  can  be  done,  even  if  he  began  at 


156  Church    Folks 

nine  in  the  morning  and  continued  till 
nine  at  night,  but  because  no  man  can 
stand  more  than  five  hours  of  visiting. 

Upon  his  return — and  I  confess  this 
frankly — the  minister  allows  himself 
a  little  more  food,  but  again  it  has  to 
be  kept  for  him,  because  another  visitor 
who  has  missed  him  in  the  afternoon 
discovers  from  a  guileless  waitress,  who 
has  just  come  to  the  minister's  house 
and  has  not  yet  learned  the  duties  of 
a  minister's  servant,  the  hour  at  which 
the  unfortunate  man  will  get  his  next 
meal,  and  has  been  waiting  for  half  an 
hour  to  ask  the  help  of  the  minister  for 
a  cause  which  in  two  cases  out  of  three 
is  a  mere  excrescence  upon  philan- 
thropy, and  a  cause  with  which  the 
minister  has  not  the  remotest  connec- 
tion. 

People  who  do  not  know  might  sup- 
pose that  after  the  minister  had  taken 
his  very  modest  meal  he  would  be  at 
liberty  to  sit  with  his  wife  and  children 


Church    Folks  157 

in  the  family  room  and  discharge  one 
of  his  duties  as  the  head  of  the  house- 
hold as  well  as  to  enjoy  the  sweetest 
pleasure  of  the  day.  It  is  a  rare  thing 
that  this  unfortunate  man  has  an  even- 
ing to  himself,  because  immediately 
after  dinner  he  has  to  go  to  a  service 
or  to  a  meeting  at  his  church,  and  while 
the  members  of  the  congregation  dis- 
tribute themselves  among  the  different 
evenings,  which  is  quite  right,  he  must 
be  present  at  everything,  or  if  he  is  not, 
then  that  from  which  he  is  absent  begins 
to  fail. 

Wheit  He  Hoped  foe  an"  Evening  to 
Himself. 

If  he  has  an  evening  to  spare,  then 
some  member  of  his  congregation  will 
ask  him  to  come  to  a  meeting  on  behalf 
of  something  or  other  in  which  he  is 
interested,  and  there  are  reasons  why 
the  minister  cannot  refuse.  Likely  as 
not  that  very  gentleman  had  been  saying 


158  Church    Folks 

last  week  that  the  minister  was  over- 
worked and  must  not  make  so  many 
engagements,  but  when  the  time  comes 
that  he  has  an  axe  of  his  own  to  grind 
he  will  not  have  the  slightest  hesitation 
in  asking  the  minister  to  turn  the 
grindstone.  And  indeed  the  public 
work  of  the  minister  is  much  increased 
by  his  own  people,  who  give  the  secre- 
taries and  the  faddists  and  the  rest  of 
the  brigands  letters  of  introduction 
which  conclude,  '^  I  hope  you  will  grant 
Mr.  Tootle's  request  as  a  personal  favor 
to  myself."  The  same  gentleman  may 
only  do  this  once  in  six  months,  but 
then  a  hundred  other  people  in  the 
church  will  do  the  same  at  intervals, 
and  so  the  minister  is  sold  into  bondage 
by  those  of  his  own  household. 

Why  He  Seldom  Has  an  Evening  to 
Himself. 

Were   I   a   layman,    and   some   paid 
secretary  who  has  nothing  else  to  do — 


Church    Folks  159 

as  it  sometimes  appears  to  me — except 
to  write  unnecessary  letters  and  get  up 
wearisome  meetings  and  harass  minis- 
ters, came  to  me  and  asked  me  to  tease 
my  minister  into  leaving  his  own  work 
and  attending  the  secretary's  meeting, 
I  would  express  my  mind  to  the  secre- 
tary in  the  language  which  might  be 
given  me  in  that  hour  by  a  kindly 
Providence,  and  one  minister  at  least 
would  be  saved  from  the  secretary.  If 
the  religious  public  has  ever  any  mis- 
giving about  the  money  which  is  spent 
on  secretaries,  and  the  usefulness  of 
their  work,  it  may  be  some  consolation 
for  that  public  to  know  that  as  long  as 
there  are  paid  secretaries  for  philan- 
thropic societies,  no  city  minister  will 
ever  be  allowed  to  idle  away  his  time, 
either  in  reading  modern  theology  or  in 
talking  with  his  family. 

Suppose,  however,  that  by  some 
extraordinary  mercy  the  minister  has 
an  evening  to  himself,  actually  to  him- 


i6o  Church    Folks 

self — which  will  come  about  six  times 
in  the  winter  season — and  he  proposes 
to  read  aloud  to  his  wife,  or  that  she 
should  give  him  a  little  music,  or  that 
the  family  should  look  over  some  art 
books  together,  or — for  I  am  not  hiding 
his  little  weaknesses — that  they  should 
play  a  game  together,  his  wife,  his 
children,  and  himself.  The  bell  rings, 
and  the  minister  looks  at  his  wife;  he 
knows  what  that  means.  It  is  at  such 
moments  that  his  belief  in  a  personal 
devil,  whose  ingenuity  is  in  keeping 
with  his  malignancy,  is  firmly  estab- 
lished. 

ISTeither  His  Time  Nor  His  Privacy 
Respected. 

It  is  not  that  the  caller  would  natu- 
rally suggest  Satan  to  a  stranger,  for 
he  is  simply  a  respectable,  not  very 
brilliant,  citizen,  belonging  to  the  min- 
ister's congregation  or  perhaps  to  some 
other     minister's     congregation,      who 


Church    Folks  1 6 1 

might  have  called  at  some  other  hour, 
and  would  have  called  at  another  time 
if  he  had  wished  to  see  a  merchant,  but 
who  breaks  in  upon  the  minister's 
privacy  with  the  vague  idea  in  his  mind 
that  as  the  minister  had  all  the  day  to 
himself,  his  evening  hours  are  at  the 
mercy  of  the  public.  As  regards  the 
visitor's  errand,  he  might  as  well  have 
written,  but  he  felt  it  would  be  better 
discussed  at  a  personal  interview — fif- 
teen minutes  would  give  ample  op- 
portunity. As  it  is,  this  garrulous 
gentleman  sits  down  for  the  evening  in 
the  minister's  study,  and  when  he  goes, 
full  of  regret  for  having  occupied  so 
much  of  the  minister's  time,  the  chil- 
dren have  gone  to  bed  and  the  minister's 
wife  is  sitting  lonely  in  the  empty 
drawing-room. 

There  is  no  other  man  who  suffers 
after  this  fashion,  not  even  a  doctor,  for 
people  do  not  saunter  in  and  sit  in  his 
consulting-room  when  they  ought  to  be 


1 62  Church    Folks 

with  their  families,  and  he  wishes  to  be 
with  his.  Doctors  have  a  hard  life,  for 
they  are  liable  to  be  called  out  at  any 
hour  and  to  be  w^orked  from  morning 
till  night,  but  they  are  at  least  pro- 
tected from  casual  visits  and  twaddling 
conversation  by  the  simple  fact  that  if 
a  man  comes  to  their  consulting-room, 
he  is  not  allowed  to  stay  longer  than 
fifteen  minutes,  and  he  has  to  pay  for 
the  time  he  stays.  Of  course,  a  minister 
is  at  the  service  of  his  congregation  at 
all  reasonable  hours,  and  at  any  hour 
he  is  ready  for  the  service  of  the 
dying  and  bereaved;  but  if  every 
stranger  w^ho  has  no  claim  upon  him, 
and  who  comes  to  him  about  his  own 
affairs,  had  to  pay  a  reasonable  fee,  and 
this  fee  were  doubled  if  he  came  in  the 
evening,  then  a  minister's  children 
might  come  to  know  their  father  and 
a  minister's  wife  would  not  have  to 
complain  that  she  saw  hardly  anything 
of  her  husband. 


Church    Folks  163 

MiKISTEES    I^EED    TlME    TO    ReST    AND 

Think. 

When  a  merchant  leaves  his  office 
and  goes  to  his  home  he  would  be 
astounded  if  a  cotton  broker  called  and 
proposed  to  do  business.  A  working- 
man  has  rest  in  his  own  home,  but  a 
minister's  home  is  a  thoroughfare  along 
which  all  kinds  of  people  travel.  Why 
should  not  a  minister's  home  be  as 
sacred  as  that  of  a  merchant  ?  Why 
should  he  not  have  his  periods  of  daily 
rest  as  much  as  the  barrister  ?  AVhen 
will  it  be  understood  by  congregations 
and  by  the  public  that  if  a  man  is  to 
keep  abreast  with  the  thought  of  the 
day,  and  master  the  best  thought  of 
the  past,  if  he  is  to  discharge  aright 
his  pastoral  duties  and  take  his  proper 
part  in  the  greater  movements  of  the 
commonwealth,  his  time  must  be 
guarded  from  intrusion  and  his  ener- 
gies gathered  in  from  the  dissipation 


164  Church    Folks 

of  petty  meetings?  When  will  people 
understand  that  his  work  is  as  serious 
and  as  exacting  as  that  of  any  other 
professional  man,  and  that  while  his 
time  belongs  unto  his  Master,  as  well 
as  his  talents  and  everything  he  pos- 
sesses, it  does  not  belong  to  paid  officials 
and  garrulous  callers?  When  that  is 
clearly  understood,  then  it  will  dawn 
for  the  first  time  on  certain  minds  that 
while  the  minister  has  many  functions 
to  perform,  one  of  them  is  not  to  be  the 
substitute  in  society  for  busy  men  or 
a  talking  machine  at  second-rate  relig- 
ious meetings. 


X. 

The  Minister  and  His  Vacation. 

Theee  is  no  wholesome  and  sensible 
minister  who  does  not  wish  to  have  the 
good  will  of  every  class  in  his  congrega- 
tion, but  he  especially  covets  the  respect 
and  confidence  of  the  young  men.  This 
is  not  because  they  are  wiser  than  their 
elders  nor  because  they  are  more  spirit- 
ual, but  because  they  are  unconventional 
and  sincere  to  the  last  degree. 

A  w^oman,  on  account  of  her  goodness 
and  reverence,  will  respect  a  minister 
because  of  his  office ;  a  young  man  will 
only  respect  him  because  of  himself. 
If  the  minister  be  unreal,  shifty,  cow- 
ardly,  or  lazy,   then  although  he  had 


1 66  Church    Folks 

been  ordained  twelve  times  and  is  as 
eloquent  as  Apollos  and  has  a  melting 
pulpit  voice  and  a  charming  private 
manner,  young  men  will  see  through  him 
and  despise  him  and  have  nothing  to  do 
with  him,  and  will  refuse  to  go  to  church 
on  his  account,  w^hile,  on  the  other  hand, 
although  the  minister  be  not  very  clever 
and  cannot  preach  deep  sermons  and 
has  a  habit  of  talking  plainly  and  does 
not  know  many  religious  parlor  tricks, 
if  he  be  straight  and  hard  working  and 
fearless  in  thought  as  well  as  deed,  they 
will  go  to  hear  what  he  has  to  say  and 
will  stand  up  for  him  when  his  back  is 
turned  and  will  drop  in  to  see  him  in 
his  study  and  will  consult  him  when 
they  have  got  into  a  scrape.  They  are 
not  judges  of  sanctity,  and  are  apt  to 
depreciate  really  good  men  because  they 
are  sometimes  weakly  and  effeminate, 
but  they  are  infallible  judges  of  manli- 
less,  and,  above  all  things,  they  believe 
in  a  manly  minister.     They  do  not  ask 


Church    Folks  1 67 

that  he  should  plaj  games,  for  he  may 
be  growing  old  or  he  may  be  crippled  in 
body,  but  they  do  as.k  that  he  play  the 
game  of  life  bravely  and  honorably. 

The  true  minister  is  perfectly  satis- 
fied to  be  judged  by  the  young  men's 
standard — how  he  plays  the  big  game 
— but  he  is  sometimes  concerned  be- 
cause young  men  think  that  at  one  point 
he  has  a  special  advantage,  and  he  is 
the  last  man  to  desire  favors  on  the 
field.  He  does  not  want  to  be  shielded 
from  criticism  nor  to  be  given  into  on 
account  of  his  position  nor  to  be  petted 
in  any  fashion,  but  to  do  his  work  and 
take  his  chances  and  suffer  his  reverses 
and  fight  his  battle  like  any  other  man. 
And,  therefore,  the  minister  is  justly 
sensitive  about  one  subject  of  criticism, 
and  that  is  his  holidays. 

Last  summer,  let  us  suppose,  he  was 
spending  the  month  of  August  in  the 
country,  doing  nothing  worth  mention- 
ing, except  walk  and  climb  and  fish  and 


1 68  Church    Folks 

golf  and  drive  and  ride  and  fifty  other 
things  he  did  when  he  was  a  boy.  He 
had  earned  his  holiday  by  eleven 
months'  preaching,  teaching,  studying, 
presiding,  advising,  comforting,  rebuk- 
ing, visiting,  organizing,  and  fifty  other 
things  he  never  thought  he  would  ever 
come  to  do  when  he  was  a  boy.  His 
conscience  was  quite  at  ease  at  the  close 
of  the  day,  though  he  had  not  written 
a  word,  because  there  was  no  sermon  to 
preach  on  Sunday;  and  though  he  had 
not  visited  a  person,  because  there  was 
not  a  person  to  visit,  and  he  congratu- 
lated himself  because  through  the 
length  of  the  long  idle  days  he  was  gath- 
ering strength  of  body  and  reviving  his 
mind  for  his  winter's  w^ork. 

A  Visitor  Who  Was  Warmly 
Welcomed. 

One  evening  a  bicycle  came  along  the 
lonely  road  at  full  pace  and  pulled  up 


Church    Folks  169 

at  the  gate,  and  through  the  garden 
came  a  rider,  clad  in  light  undress, 
bareheaded,  his  face  burned  to  a  choco- 
late color,  covered  with  dust,  pleasantly 
tired  with  his  spin  of  forty  miles,  but 
full  of  health  and  strength  and  glad- 
ness. He  challenged  the  minister  to 
tell  the  truth  as  between  man  and  man 
whether  he  knew  him. 

Knew  him!  Upon  the  whole,  and 
making  a  virtue  of  truthfulness,  the 
minister  admitted  that  he  did,  for  this 
was  the  young  fellow  who  sat  at  the  end 
of  the  front  seat  in  the  transept  on 
Sunday  mornings,  and  on  Sunday  even- 
ings kept  order  in  an  East  End  school 
for  boys,  and  was  always  ready  to  look 
after  some  other  young  fellow,  and  was 
as  good  a  sort  of  man  as  could  be  made. 

He  was  taken  with  triumph  and 
shouting  into  the  cottage,  and  after  a 
wash  and  a  stupendous  meal  the  minis- 
ter and  he  wandered  along  the  hillside 
and  talked  about  many  things,  and  came 


1 70  Church    Folks 

back  and  sat  in  the  garden  amid  the 
smell  of  the  flowers,  till  they  could  no 
longer  speak  for  sleep.  In  the  morning 
they  climbed  the  hill  behind  and  viewed 
the  country,  and  then  the  young  man 
went  on  his  way,  and  at  the  corner  of 
the  road  he  said  farewell ;  and  as  he  did 
so  he  mournfully  shook  his  head,  for  he 
was  making  for  the  nearest  railway  sta- 
tion, and  the  next  day  he  would  be  hard 
at  work  in  the  hot  city.  "  My  last  day," 
he  said  to  the  minister  as  they  parted, 
^^  and  it  has  been  a  jolly  one,"  and  al- 
though the  young  man  did  not  grudge 
the  minister  the  extra  fortnight  he  was 
going  to  have,  the  minister  could  not 
help  feeling  that  they  had  not  parted  on 
equal  terms,  but  that  he  was  thought  to 
have  the  best  of  it. 

Counting  Up  the  Vacation  Days. 

When  that  happy  summer  day  had 
become   only    a   pleasant   memory   and 


Church    Folks  1 7 1 

winter  held  the  land,  the  two  were  sit- 
ting together  again  in  the  minister's 
study — this  time  before  the  blazing  logs. 
They  were  talking  of  many  things — 
among  others  that  garden  with  its 
wealth  of  carnations — and  the  minister 
charged  the  young  man  with  his  secret 
thought,  and  declared  that  he  believed 
every  young  man  had  the  same  idea  in 
the  background  of  his  mind.  It  was 
agreed  to  have  a  debate  there  and  then, 
and  the  minister  undertook  to  prove 
that  he  had  fewer  holidays  than  a  clerk 
in  an  office,  and  that  not  for  the  sake  of 
arguing  a  ridiculous  position,  but  be- 
cause he  believed  it  to  be  the  truth. 
The  young  man  was  delighted  to  take 
the  opposite  side. 

It  was  indeed  a  simple  question  of 
arithmetic  to  put  two  sets  of  figures 
do^^TL  upon  a  sheet  of  paper  and  sub- 
tract the  lesser  from  the  greater  num- 
ber; the  balance  left  would  decide  the 
debate. 


172  Church    Folks 

As  the  minister  had  a  city  parish  and 
a  considerate  congregation,  he  was  more 
generously  treated  than  many  of  his 
brethren,  and  was  allowed  in  the  course 
of  the  year  a  six  weeks'  holiday,  which 
he  divided  into  a  month  at  the  close  of 
summer,  and  a  fortnight  in  the  spring- 
time, when  the  heavy  work  of  winter 
had  been  finished.  And  this  made 
forty-two  days.  Between  January  and 
December  he  very  occasionally  had  a 
day  in  the  country  outside  holiday 
times,  or  half  a  day  in  the  city,  wherein 
he  followed  his  own  pleasure.  The 
country  day  very  often  meant  golf,  and 
the  city  half-day,  hunting  through  a 
library  and  prowling  among  the  book- 
shops. Let  such  odds  and  ends  be  set 
down  in  all  at  eight  days,  and  the  min- 
ister's vacation  amounted  to  fifty  days. 


Church    Folks  173 

When  the  Total  was  Written 
Down. 

When  the  minister  himself  wrote 
down  the  total  his  opponent  felt  that  it 
was  hardly  worth  stating  his  case.  As 
the  minister  insisted  and  furnished  the 
young  man  with  a  sheet  of  paper  and  a 
pencil  the  debate  seemed  to  grow  into  a 
comedy. 

''  Twelve  days  is  the  rule  in  our  of- 
fice, and  one  is  lucky  if  he  gets  away  in 
August,  for  he  may  be  put  off  with 
April,"  said  the  young  man.  And  he 
was  already  deducting  twelve  from  fifty 
and  wondering  what  the  minister  would 
say  to  a  majority  of  thirty-eight. 

"  Does  your  furlough,''  questioned 
the  minister,  "  include  Sundays  in  the 
twelve  days  ? "  The  young  man  ad- 
mitted it  did  not.  And  so  the  figure 
twelve  was  changed  to  fourteen,  but  that 
did  not  make  any  great  difference. 

"  Is  your  office  open  on   Christmas 


1 74  Church    Folks 

Day  ?  "  continued  the  minister.  "  I 
think  not ;  nor  on  'New  Year's  Day,  nor 
Easter  Monday,  nor  Whit  Monday.  By 
the  way,  unless  I  am  mistaken  you 
have  the  day  after  Christmas,  too,  and 
another  day  at  Easter  time.  We  are 
coming  along  nicely;  that  makes  six 
days  you  had  not  reckoned,  and  then 
there  is  a  bank  holiday  about  the  begin- 
ning of  August,  which  you  avoid  when 
you  are  arranging  your  yearly  holiday. 
Where  are  we  now  ?  Twenty-one  days, 
I  declare — three  weeks.  It  is  little 
enough  for  a  man  who  works  so  hard, 
but  it  is  better  than  you  had  reckoned." 

"  Yes,  it  reduces  your  majority,  but 
it  still  stands  at  a  respectable  figure — 
twenty-nine  days  more  to  the  minister 
than  to  the  clerk.'' 

"  Perhaps,"  replied  the  minister, 
"  but  what  a  shameful  thing  it  is  that 
your  firm,  which  has  such  a  good  name 
and  does  such  a  large  business,  should 
work  their  clerks  the  whole  of  Saturday 


Church    Folks  175 

instead  of  giving  them  a  good  half  holi- 
day. IsTothing,  I  should  say,  would  be 
more  pleasant  for  a  young  fellow  than 
to  be  able  to  take  a  run  into  the  country 
on  his  bicycle  on  Saturday  afternoon, 
when  the  flowers  are  just  beginning  to 
come  out  and  the  hedgerows  have  their 
first  green,  or  to  have  four  hours'  skat- 
ing through  clear,  clean,  bracing  winter 
air.  I  pity  you,''  said  the  minister 
with  sympathy,  ^^  not  having  the  Satur- 
day half  holiday.  You  are  as  badly  off 
as  I  am  myself,  to  whom  Saturday  is 
the  second  hardest  day  of  the  week." 

When^  the  Minister  Envies  the 
Layman. 

The  minister  arose  and  threw  another 
log  upon  the  fire,  for  he  was  a  generous 
man  and  also  had  some  sense  of  humor, 
and  did  not  wish  to  put  his  friend  to 
confusion. 

"  i^ever  thought  of  that,"   said  the 


1 76  Church    Folks 

young  man  ingenuously ;  ^^  it  is  quite 
true.  I  remember  pitying  you  one  day 
when  I  was  going  to  skate  and  came  in 
to  see  whether  you  would  go  with  me, 
and  found  you  grinding  at  your  second 
sermon." 

"Well/'  said  the  minister,  "half  a 
day  for  fifty-two  weeks  comes  to  twenty- 
six  whole  days,  and  deducting  the  two 
half  holidays  counted  into  your  regular 
vacation,  that  leaves  twenty-five  days  to 
be  added  to  the  twenty-one,  which 
makes  forty-six,  unless  my  poor  head  is 
wrong  in  the  addition. 

"  Oh !  "  said  the  minister,  "  I  am 
right,  am  I  ?  You  stand  now  forty-six 
against  my  fifty.  I  must  congratulate 
you  upon  your  minority.  'No  minister 
complains  of  his  work,  not  even  of  the 
push  and  anxiety  of  Saturday,  but  I  tell 
you  honestly,  Dick,  there  are  times 
when  he  envies  a  layman  his  Sunday, 
for  the  Sunday  is  the  layman's  day  of 
rest  and  the  minister's  day  of  toil.    On 


Church    Folks  i  'j'j 

that  day  most  people  have  a  little  longer 
sleep  in  the  morning — though  very  like- 
ly you  rise  at  ^yq^  o'clock  on  Sunday 
morning  to  study  Hebrew — and  then 
they  have  a  leisurely  breakfast — for  why 
should  they  hurry,  it  is  not  a  working 
day?  Between  breakfast  and  church 
time  they  talk  about  all  kinds  of  things 
and  turn  over  books  and  read  letters 
that  have  come  from  abroad,  and  have 
the  sense  of  being  at  their  ease.  If  it 
be  fair  weather  they  take  the  longest 
road  to  church,  walking  through  a  gar- 
den or  a  park,  and  they  saunter  church- 
ward with  unembarrassed  minds.  The 
father  sits  with  his  family  in  their  pew 
and  can  give  his  mind  to  the  worship 
without  distraction  and  without  fear. 
Perhaps  he  never  thinks  about  the  min- 
ister's wife,  who  sits  like  a  widow  in 
her  pew  with  her  children  as  orphans, 
for  the  head  of  her  household  is  that 
day  on  his  hardest  duty,  and  has  so 
much  to  do  in  leading  other  people's 


178  Church    Folks 

worship  that  he  can  hardly  be  said  to 
have  rest  enough  of  mind  to  worship 
himself.  Please  don't  interrupt/'  for 
the  young  man  was  beginning  to  ask 
terms  of  surrender. 

Once  the  Minister  Had  a  Sunday 
TO  Himself. 

"  Do  you  know/'  said  the  minister 
as  he  looked  into  the  dancing  firelight, 
"  that  some  years  ago  I  had  a  Sunday 
to  myself  with  my  family,  and  I  can 
still  taste  its  sweetness.  We  started 
discussions  on  Bible  characters  and 
religious  subjects  after  breakfast,  and 
I  found  out  for  the  first  time  what  my 
boys  were  thinking  about.  We  hunted 
up  books  which  had  been  mentioned, 
and  I  read  favorite  passages  from  the 
poets  and  showed  rare  editions  and  bits 
of  binding  which  I  kept  locked  up  from 
the  light  and  dust.  We  gossiped,  we 
loitered,  we  hune;  over  treasures.     We 


Church    Folks  1 79 

took  tea  in  the  garden,  we  talked  of  old 
days,  we  made  plans  for  the  future. 
Why,  I  walked  with  my  family  to 
church,  with  no  weight  on  my  mind 
and  no  reason  for  hurry.  So  keenly  did 
I  enjoy  the  day  that  I  resolved  to  taste 
it  to  the  last  drop. 

^^  Do  you  think  I  went  into  the  vestry 
before  service  because  it  was  my  vestry, 
and  instructed  the  minister  about  the 
notices  because  it  was  my  church  ?  Cer- 
tainly not.  I  went  in  through  the 
front  door,  like  any  other  member  of 
the  congregation,  and  nodded  affably  to 
the  officials  as  I  passed.  I  walked  up 
the  aisle  behind  my  family  and  sat  at 
the  end  of  my  pew  like  any  other  head 
of  a  household.  After  service  I  did  go 
to  the  vestry,  and  having  been  admitted, 
thanked  the  preacher  for  his  sermon  as 
one  of  his  hearers,  and  then  went  home 
talking  about  the  service  with  my  boys, 
for  it  was  another  man's  sermon  and  I 
could    enlarge    upon    its    good    points. 


i8o  Church    Folks 

That  afternoon,  having  time  at  mj  dis- 
posal, I  visited  a  hall  downtown  where 
a  man  with  a  gift  of  his  own  was  teach- 
ing two  hundred  unskilled  laborers  the 
elements  of  religion,  and  came  home 
mightily  refreshed,  and  then  we  read 
again  and  talked,  and  my  family  and 
I  became  almost  intimate,  because  we 
had  leisure  and  it  was  Sunday. 

"  At  evening  service  I  had  the  pleas- 
ure of  picking  up  a  young  man  at  the 
door  who  was  waiting  for  a  seat,  and 
taking  him  to  my  pew,  and  explaining 
to  him  that  he  might  always  have  that 
seat  in  the  evening,  and  that  I  was  glad 
he  had  come,  as  we  were  going  to  have 
a  good  sermon.  He  looked  curiously  at 
me,  and  was  about  to  say  something 
when  I  anticipated  him  and  explained 
that  I  was  not  the  minister  of  the 
church  that  day,  but  simply  a  hearer 
like  himself.  I  had  more  talk  with  my 
family  after  service — the  pleasant  ram- 
bling but  not  unprofitable  conversation 


Church    Folks  i8i 

of  people  who  were  not  tired  nor  over- 
strung, and  so  the  day  of  rest  closed  in 
kindly  fellowship  and  inward  peace. 
We  must  all  make  sacrifices,  Dick,  but 
the  hardest  one  that  a  minister  has  to 
make  is  his  Sunday,  for  it  is  to  the 
injury  of  his  own  soul  and  also  of  his 
family.  Be  thankful  for  your  quiet 
Sundays  and  guard  them  jealously  for 
the  rest  of  mind  and  body." 

"  You  have  proved  your  case,"  said 
Dick ;  "  adding  fifty  Sundays  and 
twenty-five  half  Saturdays,  I  make  my 
vacation  ninety-six  days  against  your 
fifty." 

Theee  is  IN"©  End  to  the   Church 
Work. 

"  It  is  mean,"  said  the  minister,  ''  to 
triumph  over  a  beaten  foe,  especially 
when  he  is  such  a  good  fellow,  but 
figures  cannot  quite  represent  the  case, 
because   there   is   the   question   of   the 


1 82  Church    Folks 

different  kind  of  work  done,  say,  in  an 
office  and  in  a  study.  I  know  that 
business  is  exacting,  that  it  means  a 
steady  grind,  and  that  it  is  full  of  sur- 
prises and  disappointments  and  the 
chance  of  great  reverses,  but  the  busi- 
ness man  has  his  own  advantages.  For 
one  thing,  there  is  a  limit  to  his  work, 
and  when  he  comes  home  in  the  evening 
he  leaves  his  work  behind  him.  But 
there  is  no  limit  whatever  to  the  minis- 
ter's work.  It  is  ever  hanging  over 
him,  ever  distracting  his  thoughts,  ever 
exasperating  his  nerves,  ever  reproach- 
ing his  conscience.  When  he  allows 
himself  a  social  evening,  he  does  not 
meet  with  the  other  guests  on  equal 
terms,  because  they  have  written  their 
last  letter  and  discharged  their  last 
duty  for  the  day,  and  when  they  go 
home  it  will  be  to  finish  the  last  chapter 
of  a  pleasant  book  and  go  to  bed ;  but  he 
tore  himself  away  from  half-finished 
work,  and  when  his  friends  are  sleeping 


Church    Folks  183 

the  light  will  be  burning  on  his  desk. 
Besides — and,  Dick,  you  cannot  imagine 
what  this  means — the  merchant  .knows 
that  he  can  do  so  much  work  in  eight 
hours,  because  he  is  dealing  with  affairs ; 
but  the  minister  never  knows  what  he 
can  do,  because  he  is  dealing  with  ideas. 
It  is  the  necessity  of  production,  even 
when  the  mind  will  not  produce,  which 
grates  upon  the  nerves  of  a  minister 
and  is  apt  to  break  down  his  health. 

'^  The  journalist  writes  every  day, 
but  he  has  something  new  to  write 
about ;  the  literary  man  whites  when  he 
is  inclined;  the  minister  has  to  write 
on  an  old  subject — although  the  great- 
est which  can  engage  the  mind — and  he 
has  to  write  whether  his  mind  is  bright 
or  dull.  Possibly  no  man  has  moments 
of  such  joy — when  he  is  inspired;  cer- 
tainly no  man  has  such  hours  of  depres- 
sion— when  he  has  fallen  beneath  his 
subject.  It  is  only  by  patient  reading 
and    unceasing    prayer    that    he    can 


1 84  Church    Folks 

accomplish  his  duty,  and  then  he  is  ever 
strained  to  the  utmost,  and  never  knows 
the  rest  of  the  man  who  does  his  work 
with  time  and  strength  and  ideas  to 
spare.  When  the  minister  in  active 
service  lies  doAvn  to  die  he  will  be 
giving  directions  in  his  last  conscious 
moments  about  a  letter  that  had  not 
been  answered,  and  sending  explana- 
tions to  a  family  that  has  not  been 
visited,  and  when  his  mind  begins  to 
wander,  it  will  be  among  texts  with 
which  he  has  struggled  and  efforts 
which  he  has  made  in  vain.'' 

Lois-GER   Vacations    Should   be   the 
Rule. 

^^  He  ought  to  have  two  months  every 
year,"  cried  Dick,  "  and  when  I  am 
a  deacon  I'll  see  that  my  minister  has 
a  six  months'  holiday  in  addition  every 
seven  years,  in  order  that  he  may  begin 
again  as  a  new  man  in  mind  and  body." 


Church    Folks  185 

"  You  are  a  good  fellow,  Dick,  and 
you're  wise  for  your  years,  and  if  the 
Church  treated  her  ministers  after  this 
fashion  she  would  reap  all  the  gain. 
For  every  new  idea  which  comes  to  the 
minister's  mind,  and  every  new  book 
he  reads,  and  every  new  sight  he  sees, 
and  every  new  gallery  he  visits  during 
his  holidays  pass  into  his  words  and 
into  his  life,  and  the  thoughtfulness 
and  generosity  of  congregations  would 
come  back  to  their  own  souls  with  usury 
of  reward.'' 


XL 

The  Revival  of  a  Minister. 

It  was  not  that  the  minister  had  be- 
come too  old,  for  he  was  still  in  the 
prime  of  life;  or  that  his  health  had 
failed,  for  he  was  stronger  than  in  the 
days  of  his  youth ;  or  that  he  had  ceased 
to  study,  for  he  was  a  harder  reader 
than  ever;  or  that  he  had  lost  touch 
with  the  age,  for  he  was  essentially  a 
modern  thinker.  It  was  not  that  he 
was  less  diligent  in  pastoral  work  or  less 
skilful  in  organization,  nor  was  it  that 
he  had  quarrelled  with  his  congregation, 
or  his  congregation  with  him,  nor  was 
it  that  the  district  had  changed  or  that 
the  church  had  been  left  without  people. 


Church    Folks  187 

He  preached  as  well  as  ever  he  did,  and 
with  much  more  weight  and  wisdom 
than  twenty  years  ago.  There  were  as 
many  members  on  the  roll,  and  as  much 
money  raised,  and  as  much  work  done, 
and  the  church  had  as  great  a  reputa- 
tion. It  was  difficult  to  lay  your  finger 
upon  anything  wanting  in  minister  or 
people,  and  yet  the  minister  was  con- 
scious and  the  people  had  a  vague  sense 
that  something  w^as  wrong.  The  spirit 
of  the  congregation  w^as  lower,  their  dis- 
charge of  duty  was  flatter,  their  response 
to  appeals  w^as  slower,  their  attendance 
at  extra  services  was  poorer.  There 
was  less  enthusiasm,  less  spontaneity, 
less  loyalty.  After  fifteen  years  of  ser- 
vice in  the  same  place,  addressing  the 
same  people,  and  saying,  of  necessity, 
the  same  things,  and  moving  about  in 
the  same  district,  the  minister,  without 
any  fault  on  his  part,  but  simply 
through  an  infirmity  of  human  nature, 
had  grown  a  little  weary.     He  had  lost 


1 88  Church    Folks 

freshness,  not  of  thought  nor  of  expres- 
sion, but  of  spirit;  and  there  was  not 
in  him  now  that  buoyancy  of  soul  and 
that  hopefulness  of  tone  and  that  per- 
petual joy  of  speech  which  once  had 
attracted  people  and  won  their  hearts. 
And,  on  their  part,  the  people  had  lost 
freshness  toward  him;  not  respect  for 
him  nor  gratitude  for  his  past  service 
nor  appreciation  of  his  present  work, 
but  their  sense  of  expectation  from  him 
and  their  affectionate  delight  in  him 
and  their  joy  in  speaking  about 
him.  Their  pulses  were  not  stirred 
when  he  preached,  nor  did  a  visit  from 
him  make  an  event,  nor  would  his 
absence  make  any  great  blank  in  their 
lives.  There  was  still  an  honest  affec- 
tion between  the  minister  and  his 
people,  but  it  had  lost  the  passion  and 
romance  of  past  years.  It  was  now 
undemonstrative  and  well  regulated; 
perhaps  a  trifle  too  sober  and  calm  to 
be  called  affection. 


Church    Folks  189 

The  people  had  grown  so  accustomed 
to  their  minister,  his  appearance,  his 
voice,  his  way  of  thinking,  his  tricks 
of  manner,  that  they  were  able  to  criti- 
cise him  and  note  his  faults  with  much 
accuracy.  He  did  not  care  to  be  contra- 
dicted, and  was  apt  to  be  irritated  when 
his  plans  were  opposed ;  he  was  too  fond 
of  certain  lines  of  thought,  and  did  not 
always  preach  to  edification;  he  wss 
apt  to  be  too  much  with  a  few  friends, 
and  did  not  hold  himself  sufficiently  at 
the  disposal  of  all;  he  gave  too  much 
attention  to  outside  work,  and  some- 
times neglected  his  pastoral  duty;  he 
insisted  upon  using  his  leisure  time  as 
he  pleased,  and  did  not  seem  to  remem- 
ber that  he  ought  not  to  have  had  any 
leisure  time;  he  was  apt  to  grumble 
when  extra  duties  were  put  upon  him, 
and  was  not  always  gracious  when  asked 
to  do  more  than  his  own  work.  Ten 
years  ago  no  one  had  dared  to  hint  at 
those  faults,   for  he  would  have  been 


190  Church    Folks 

torn  in  pieces  by  his  fellow-members,  as 
an  evil-minded  and  unreasonable  man. 
The  minister  was  very  much  then  what 
he  is  now,  but  his  faults  then  were  lost 
in  high  spirits  and  earnestness  and 
kindly  feeling  and  devotion  to  spiritual 
duty.  He  was  perfect  then  in  the 
glamour  of  the  morning  light ;  he  is  an 
ordinary  man  now  whose  imperfections 
are  clearly  seen  in  the  glare  of  noonday. 
The  minister  is  also  able  now  to  look  at 
his  people  from  a  distance  and  to  judge 
them  with  an  impartial  mind,  while 
once  they  were  to  him  altogether  lovely, 
without  spot  or  blemish  or  any  such 
thing,  and  you  might  have  more  safely 
criticised  a  bride's  appearance  to  her 
bridegroom  during  the  honeymoon  than 
have  found  fault  with  this  man's  con- 
gregation. Whether  it  be  that  his  eyes 
are  clearer  or  his  heart  is  colder,  he  is 
under  no  delusions  now;  and  although 
he  would  not  say  such  things  in  public, 
he  knows  quite  well  wherein  his  people 


Church    Folks  191 

come  short.  Some  of  them  are  hope- 
lessly bigoted  in  their  own  views,  and 
are  not  open  even  to  the  best  light, 
which  he  is  apt  to  think  is  his  own. 
Some  of  them  are  so  liberal  that  they 
have  hardly  any  faith,  and  he  forgets 
to  remind  himself  that  for  their  lack  of 
faith  he  is  responsible.  Some  of  them 
are  so  worldly  that  the  highest  appeals 
of  religion  have  no  effect  upon  their 
lives,  and  some  of  them  so  ungenerous 
that  they  will  hardly  support  the  best 
of  causes.  He  feels  keenly  that  young 
people  whom  he  trained  and  loved  are 
no  longer  true  to  him,  but  prefer  other 
voices,  and  are  as  enthusiastic  about 
others  as  once  they  were  about  him ;  and 
he  misses  little  acts  of  kindness,  which 
are  no  longer  rendered  him,  and  which 
he  valued,  not  for  their  o^Yn  value,  but 
because  they  were  the  sacraments  of 
friendship.  He  still  believes  his  con- 
gregation to  be  better  than  any  other 
he    knows,    he    still    remembers    their 


192  Church    Folks 

loyalty  in  years  past;  but  the  days  of 
first  love  are  over,  and  his  heart  is 
sometimes  heavy. 

One  evening  the  office  bearers  of  the 
church  had  been  meeting,  and  when 
the  business  was  done  they  drifted  into 
talk  about  the  church  life  and  about 
their  minister.  They  were,  upon  the 
whole,  a  body  of  honorable,  sensible, 
good-hearted,  and  straightforward  men, 
who  desired  to  do  their  best  by  their 
minister,  and  not  to  vex  him  in  any 
way;  who  always  took  care  that  he  had 
a  proper  salary  and  a  good  holiday; 
who  would  never  complain  without 
reason,  and  who  would  never  dream  of 
asking  any  man  to  resign,  and  setting 
him  adrift  after  a  long  service  without 
a  pension.  But  they  were  not  satisfied 
with  the  state  of  aif airs,  and  after  much 
talking  up  and  down,  suggesting,  hint- 
ing, indicating,  qualifying,  it  was 
almost  a  relief  when  Mr.  Judkin,  their 


Church    Folks  193 

chairman,  and  a  strong  man  in  word  and 
deed,  gave  expression  to  their  minds. 
^^  There  is  no  man,"  he  said,  "  I 
respect  more  thoroughly  than  our  min- 
ister, for  he  has  worked  hard  and  made 
our  congregation  what  it  is.  He  is  well 
read  and  a  good  preacher,  and  no  one 
can  say  a  word  against  his  life  or  con- 
duct; but  there  is  no  question,  and  I 
think  it  is  better  that  it  should  be  said 
instead  of  being  felt  in  secret,  that 
somehow  or  other  our  minister  is  losing 
his  hold  upon  the  people,  and  that  the 
congregation  is  not  what  it  used  to  be 
in  tone  and  in  heart.  My  impression, 
brethren,  is  that  while  it  might  be  a 
risk  for  us,  and  very  likely  we  would 
never  get  any  one  who  could  do  for  us 
what  our  minister  has  done  in  the  past, 
that  he  has  finished  his  work  and  both 
sides  would  be  better  to  have  a  change." 
And  when  Mr.  Judkin  looked  round  he 
saw  that  he  had  been  understood,  and 
was  encouraged  to  continue  to  the  end. 


194  Church    Folks 

"  Our  minister  has  so  good  a  position 
in  the  church  and  his  reputation  is  so 
high  that  he  could  easily  obtain  another 
congregation  if  he  wished.  In  fact, 
I  have  reason  to  believe  that  he  has  had 
opportunities  of  making  a  change,  but 
has  always  refused  to  entertain  the  idea. 
There  is  no  man  in  the  congregation 
who  would  ask  the  minister  to  leave — 
certainly  I  shall  not ;  but  I  am  not  sure 
but  that  a  new  beginning  would  be  the 
best  thing  for  the  minister,  and  also,  I 
am  bound  to  add,  might  be  a  good  thing 
for  us.  One  thing  I  would  like  to  say 
more,  and  that  is  about  the  finance.  We 
are  not  a  poor  church  and  we  will 
always  be  able  to  pay  our  way,  but  we 
have  a  pretty  heavy  debit  balance,  and 
there  was  rather  a  poor  response  to  the 
last  appeal  from  the  pulpit.  If  the 
congregation  were  in  good  heart,  the 
necessary  $2000  could  have  been  got 
in  a  week.'' 

There   was    a    pause,    during   which 


Church    Folks  195 

several  brethren  conveyed  by  looks  and 
nods  to  Mr.  Judkin  that  he  had  ex- 
pressed their  mind ;  and  then  the  silence 
was  broken  by  Mr.  Stonier,  who  was 
distinguished  in  the  congregation  and 
outside  of  it  by  extreme  parsimony  in 
money  matters,  an  entire  absence  of 
sentiment,  and  a  ghastly  frankness  of 
speech.  It  was  felt  when  he  took  up 
the  speaking,  that  if  Mr.  Judkin  had 
placed  the  nail  in  position,  Mr.  Stonier 
would  hammer  it  in  to  the  head,  but  you 
never  can  tell.  ''  This,''  said  Mr. 
Stonier,  ^^  is  a  conference,  I  suppose, 
when  any  man  can  say  anything  he 
pleases,  and  there  are  no  rules  of  order. 
For  myself,  I  did  not  know  that  we  were 
going  to  sit  to-night  in  judgment  on  the 
minister,  and  I  didn't  know  that  Mr. 
Judkin  and  the  rest  of  you  were  going 
to  ask  him  in  some  roundabout,  gentle- 
manly. Christian,  high-toned  fashion 
to  look  out  for  another  place.  Oh,  yes ; 
that  is  just  what  you  are  after,  but  you 


196  Church    Folks 

are  such  a  set  of  pussy-cats  that  you 
won't  speak  out  and  say  what  you 
mean!  For  myself,  I've  been  a  seat- 
holder  in  the  church  for  fifteen  years, 
and  when  I  came  here  the  church  was 
nearly  empty,  and  now  it's  quite  full, 
and  the  minister  has  done  fifteen  years' 
hard  work.  ISTow,  I  do  not  set  up  to  be 
a  philanthropist,  and  I  never  gave  a 
penny  for  the  "  conversion  of  the 
Jews,"  nor  to  the  "  Society  for  Supply- 
ing Free  Food  to  Street  Loafers,"  nor 
to  any  other  of  the  schemes  you  gentle- 
men advocate.  I  am  not  what  is  called 
a  large  giver,  but  I  hope  I'm  an  honest 
man ;  and  I  tell  you  that  if  I  had  a  man 
in  my  office  who  had  served  me  fifteen 
years  and  done  his  work  well,  and  I 
proposed  to  get  rid  of  him  because  I 
was  tired  seeing  the  same  man  always 
at  his  desk  and  the  same  writing  in  the 
ledger,  I  should  consider  myself  a 
scamp;  and  I  thank  God  I  never  have 
done  such  a  thing  with  any  of  my  staff. 


Church    Folks  1 97 

If  you  can  find  any  man  who  has  been 
in  my  office  and  been  dismissed  because 
I  wanted  to  see  a  new  face,  then  I'll  give 
$100  to  Timbuctoo  or  any  other  mission 
you  like."  'No  one  expected  to  earn  the 
prize,  for  it  v/as  well  kno^\m.  that  al- 
though Mr.  Stonier  was  as  hard  as 
nails  to  miscellaneous  charity,  he  was 
an  excellent  master  in  his  own  office. 

"  As  regards  the  deficit  in  the  church 
funds,  if  that  is  the  ground  on  which 
the  minister  is  going  to  be  dismissed, 
Pm  prepared  to  pay  the  whole  sum 
myself;  and  I  do  it,  mark  you,  as  a 
token  of  respect  and  gratitude — grati- 
tude, see  you,  gentlemen,  for  fifteen 
years'  honest  work.''  ^o  sooner  had 
this  outspoken  man  sat  do^\Ti  than  Mr. 
Lovejoy,  the  kindest  and  sweetest  soul 
in  all  the  congregation,  who  had  been 
very  restless  for  some  time,  ventured 
on  speech. 

^^  I  do  not  wish  to  argue  with  my  dear 
brethren  who  have  spoken,  for  Brother 


198  Church    Folks 

Judkin  is  too  strong  for  me,  and  no 
person  could  reply  to  Brother  Stonier 
with  his  handsome  offer.  Most  gener- 
ous, and  just  like  his  kind  heart,  of 
which  I  have  had  experience  for  many 
years  in  my  little  charities;  but  that's 
a  secret  between  Brother  Stonier  and 
me.  What  I  want  to  say  is  that  I  love 
our  minister  for  what  he  is  and  for  what 
he  was  to  me  in  the  time  of  my  great 
sorrow.  When  ...  I  lost  my  beloved 
wife  he  brought  the  Lord's  consolation 
day  by  day  to  my  heart,  and  our  pulpit 
will  never  be  the  same  to  me  without 
our  minister."  And  that  was  all  that 
Mr.  Love  joy  said. 

It  seemed,  however,  to  touch  a  hid- 
den spring  in  every  one  present,  and 
one  after  another  the  office  bearers 
spoke.  They  seemed  to  have  forgotten 
the  matter  before  them  and  the  delicate 
suggestion  of  Mr.  Judkin.  One  rose 
to  say  that  the  minister  had  married 
him,    and   he   never    could   forget   the 


Church    Folks  199 

marriage  address;  another  had  lost  a 
little  lad  quite  suddenly,  and  he  did  not 
think  that  his  wife  and  he  could  have 
endured  the  trial  had  it  not  been  for  the 
minister's  sympathy;  a  third  had 
passed  through  worldly  trials,  and  it 
was  the  minister's  sermon  that  had  kept 
him  above  water ;  and  a  fourth,  who,  as 
every  one  knew,  had  passed  through 
fearful  temptation,  wished  humbly  to 
testify  that  he  had  not  been  that  night 
an  office  bearer  in  a  Christian  church 
without  the  minister's  help  in  time  of 
trouble.  Others  looked  as  if  they  could 
have  spoken,  several  murmured  sympa- 
thy, and  one  deacon  surreptitiously  used 
his  handkerchief,  and  at  last  ]\Ir.  Jud- 
kin  rose  again  and  proved  himself  a 
man  worthy  to  lead  and  to  guide  a 
church. 

^^  Brethren,"  he  said,  "  I  expressed 
the  feeling  that  was  in  my  mind,  and 
I  am  thankful  that  I  gave  it  expression, 
for  it  has  relieved  me,  and  it  has  done 


200  Church    Folks 

good  to  you.  I  now  withdrav/  what  I 
said :  I  was  a  little  discouraged.  Brother 
Stonier  is  quite  right,  and  he  has  braced 
us  up ;  and  if  he  clears  off  the  deficit,  for 
which  we  are  all  much  obliged,  I  shall 
be  very  glad  if  you  allow  me,  brethren,  to 
repaint  the  church  this  fall,  for  the  col- 
ors are  getting  a  little  faded,  and  I  would 
like  to  do  it  as  a  sign  of  gratitude  for 
what  the  minister  was  to  my  wife  when 
our  son  was  hanging  between  life  and 
death.''  Mr.  Judkin's  example  set  the 
ofiice  bearers  upon  a  new  track,  one 
offering  to  supply  the  Sunday-school 
with  new  hymn-books,  about  which 
there  had  been  some  difficulty;  another 
declaring  that  if  the  mother  church  was 
going  to  be  repainted,  he  would  see  that 
the  mission  church  should  also  get 
a  coat;  a  third  offered  to  pay  the 
quarter  of  a  missionary's  salary  to  take 
the  burden  off  the  minister's  shoulders, 
and  three  other  office  bearers  appro- 
priated the  remaining  quarters,  till  at 


Church    Folks  201 

last  there  was  not  a  man  who  had  not 
secured  the  right,  personal  to  himself, 
of  doing  something,  great  or  small,  for 
the  church,  and  every  one  was  to  do  it 
out  of  gratitude  to  the  minister  for  all 
he  had  been  to  them  and  all  he  had  done 
for  them  during  fifteen  years.  And 
finally  ]\Ir.  Love  joy  melted  all  his 
brethren  by  a  prayer,  in  which  he  car- 
ried both  minister  and  people  to  the 
Throne  of  Grace,  and  so  interceded  that 
every  one  felt  as  he  left  the  place  that 
the  blessing  of  God  was  resting  upon 
him. 

The  week-night  service  was  held  on 
Wednesday,  and,  as  a  rule,  was  very 
poorly  attended.  On  this  week  the 
minister  had  come  down  to  his  vestry 
with  a  low  heart,  and  was  praying  that 
he  might  have  grace  to  address  Mr. 
Love  joy  and  a  handful  of  devout  and 
honorable  women  without  showing  that 
he  was  discouraged  himself  and  without 
discouraging  them.      There  were  days 


202  Church    Folks 

in  the  past  when  the  service  had  been 
held  in  the  church,  and  Mr.  Judkin 
used  to  boast  in  the  city  about  the  at- 
tendance; and  then  it  descended  from 
the  church  to  the  large  hall ;  but  of  late 
the  few  who  attended  had  been  gathered 
into  a  room,  because  it  was  more  cheer- 
ful to  see  a  room  nearly  full  than  a  hall 
three  parts  empty.  The  room  was  next 
door  to  the  vestry,  and  the  minister 
could  tell  before  he  went  in  whether 
the  number  would  rise  or  fall  above  the 
average  thirty.  This  evening  so  many 
feet  passed  his  door,  and  there  was  such 
a  hum  of  life,  that  he  concluded  there 
would  be  forty,  which  was  a  high  at- 
tendance, and  he  began  to  reproach  him- 
self for  cowardice  and  unbelief.  He 
was  looking  out  the  hymns  when  the 
door  opened,  and  Mr.  Love  joy  came  in 
with  such  evident  satisfaction  upon  his 
gracious  face  that  the  minister  was 
certain  some  good  thing  had  happened. 
^^  Excuse   me    interrupting   you,''    said 


Church    Folks  203 

the  good  man,  '^  but  I  came  to  ask 
whether  you  would  mind  going  into  the 
hall  to-night  ?  The  room  is  full  already, 
and  more  are  coming  every  minute.  I 
should  not  wonder  to  see  a  hundred, 
perhaps  two/'  and  Mr.  Lovejoy  beamed 
and  quite  unconsciously  shook  hands 
afresh  with  the  minister. 

"  You  may  be  sure  that  I  shall  be 
only  too  glad,  but  .  .  .  what  is  ths 
meaning  of  this  ?  Do  they  know  that  I 
am  preaching  myself  ? ''  And  the  min- 
ister seemed  anxious  lest  the  people 
should  have  been  brought  in  the  hope 
of  hearing  some  distinguished  stranger. 

"  Of  course,  they  know,  and  that  is 
why  they  have  come,"  responded  Mr. 
Lovejoy  with  great  glee ;  "  no  other 
person  could  have  brought  them,  and  if 
you  didn't  preach  to-night,  it  would  be 
the  greatest  disappointment  the  people 
ever  had;  but  I  must  hurry  off  to  see 
that  everything  is  right  in  the  hall," 
and  in  a  minute  the  minister  heard  the 


204  Church    Folks 

sound  of  many  voices  as  the  people 
poured  joyfully  from  the  room  into  the 
hall,  and  even  in  the  vestry  he  was  con- 
scious of  a  congregation.  As  he  was 
speculating  on  the  meaning  of  it  all  the 
door  opened  again  and  Mr.  Love  joy 
returned. 

"  We  hadn't  faith  enough/'  he  cried ; 
"  we  ought  to  have  gone  to  the  church 
at  once.  Brother  Stonier  said  in  his 
usual  decided  way,  ^  ^o  half  measures, 
into  the  church  with  you;'  but  I  was 
afraid  there  would  not  be  enough.  I 
was  wrong,  quite  wrong,  the  church  will 
be  nicely  filled  from  back  to  front,  for 
the  people  are  coming  in  a  steady 
stream — it's  just  great  to  see  them.  I'll 
come  back  for  you  when  they  are  all 
seated ;  but  give  them  time,  it's  not  easy 
moving  from  one  place  to  another  as 
we've  been  doing  to-night ;  but  we'll  not 
move  another  Wednesday,  we'll  just 
settle   do^^m   in   the   church   as   in   the 


Church    Folks  205 

formei*  days,'^  and  Mr.  Lovejoy  left  the 
vestry  walking  on  air. 

When  the  minister  went  in  the 
church  was  almost  full,  and  he  had  some 
difficulty  in  giving  out  the  first  hymn, 
for  it  came  upon  him  that  his  people 
had  seen  that  he  was  discouraged  and 
that  this  was  a  rally  of  affection.  The 
prayer  was  even  harder  for  him  than 
the  hymn,  although  his  heart  was  deeply 
moved  in  gratitude  to  God  and  tender 
intercession  for  men.  And  then  when 
he  came  to  the  address  he  threw  aside 
what  he  had  prepared,  for  it  seemed 
to  him  too  cold  and  formal,  and  he  read 
the  One  Hundred  and  Twenty-sixth 
Psalm  slowly  and  with  a  trembling 
voice,  and  instead  of  commentary,  he 
paused  between  the  verses,  and  the 
people  understood.  When  he  read  the 
last  verse — "  He  that  goeth  forth  and 
weepeth,  bearing  precious  seed,  shall 
doubtless    come    again   with    rejoicing. 


2o6  Church  Folks 

bringing  his  sheaves  with  him'' — he 
hesitated  a  moment,  and  then  pro- 
nounced the  benediction.  After  a  min- 
ute's silent  prayer  he  lifted  his  head 
and  found  the  people  still  waiting.  Mr. 
Judkin  rose,  and  coming  forward  to  the 
desk,  thanked  the  minister  audibly  for 
all  his  work;  and  then  they  all  came — 
men,  women,  and  children — and  each 
in  his  own  way  said  the  same  thing; 
and  the  story  went  abroad  that  Richard 
Stonier,  who  came  last  and  said  nothing, 
had  broken  down  for  the  first  and  only 
time  in  his    life. 

THE    END. 


Princeton  Theoloa 


1    1012  01009  4151 


